The new script for teaching handwriting is no script at all:
The common core state standards, a set of math and English goals agreed upon by 45 states and now being implemented, sends cursive the way of the quill pen, while requiring instead that students be proficient in keyboarding by fourth grade.
Not writing beautifully is one thing. Not writing legibly is another. Not being able to read cursive, though? That may be over-economizing:
“We’re trying to be realistic about skills that kids are going to need,” says Jill Camnitz, a longtime school board member in Greenville, N.C. “You can’t do everything. Something’s got to go.”
No matter that children will no longer be able to read the Declaration of Independence or birthday cards from their grandparents.