In the new Common Core standards, a new curriculum designed to meet stricter international learning standards and implemented across the country, cursive handwriting was dropped. But now at least seven of the 45 states that adopted the Common Core standards are aiming to bring penmanship back to the classroom.
The leaders who developed the curriculum said cursive handwriting is becoming an obsolete skill given that children today are growing up using computers and even handheld devices.
“If you just stop and think for a second about what are the sorts of skills that people are likely to be using in the future, it’s much more likely that keyboarding will help students succeed in careers and in school than it is that cursive will,” Morgan Polikoff, an assistant professor of K-12 policy and leadership at the University of Southern California, told The Associated Press.
But proponents of cursive handwriting say there is more to it.