These are the same mental giants that came up with common core.

What do mean "kids"? I am 80 and I only sign my name in cursive. Everything else is printing.

Culturally dissapointing. And I wish I could spark it in my kids to want to learn it.

Even though they do not do this in school. I am teaching my daughter. You can print out practice sheets, I found online. My boy has not shown interest yet he always wants to do what I do, he will catch up one of these days.

Teaching children the alphabet, phonics, and the basics of printing letters, forming words, then sentences, then paragraphs correctly takes years, and now standardized testing is done on computers so we’ve got to teach them to type as well (along with all that pesky curriculum so that they can actually pass the tests!)... time is so valuable in school, in order to fit it all in along with art, music, STEM, etc., some things have got to go!

I think it's great. These young whippersnappers think they're so much better than us seniors because they can use high frequencies we can't hear to pass secret messages to others of their age group, so I think it's only fair that we have our own secret code they can't understand.

Okay, tongue removed from cheek. I think they will suffer in ways they haven't realized. What happens when the need arises to check into older records that were hand written? What good is an original 1880 census record when you can't understand cursive? And the fact that most have been transcribed to print is of little use when the person who made the transcription made a copyist's error. (I've seen some rather notable ones).

Old deeds, legal papers, historical documents, and more were all written in cursive, and sooner or later I imagine most people run across the need to know how to read cursive. And here we are bringing up a generation that barely knows how to sign their own names, if that much.

I'v heard this and even said it, but changed my mind. I can't think of any valid reason that they should. If all the computers go down and we all go back to writing they can just print.

cursive is and probably always was totally unnecessary.

My kids are being taught it still.

My kids are being taught it still.

Cursive is obsolete. The ONLY cursive a person has to perform is to sign his or her name...something that can be taught in the first grade in a few class periods. Proponents of cursive make the exaggerated claim that everyone should have to learn cursive because they will have to decipher a historical document written in cursive some day. Nonsense. Few people will ever be faced with that eventuality and as time goes by, fewer and fewer will. I have not seen an important document written in cursive since the sixties. Those that will need such an obsolete skill such as historians, researchers, etc., can generally decipher a document written in cursive despite not ever learning to write it...it is not rocket science. Cursive letters are not all that hard to recognize from printed characters. If proponents of teaching cursive were honest, they would likely admit that their interest in cursive is more likely a manifestation of nostalgia rather than enabling any real practical function.

In Maine? Is it by state decision-how education usually works.

I honestly don't see why there is such concern about it. Aside from a signature, no one really uses it much any more. I see it sometimes on birthday cards and Christmas cards but, really nothing else. And as far as signatures go, even those are becoming more often digital. I bought my house a little over a year ago. I never actually signed a physical piece of paper with the mortgage company. It was all digital signatures online.

I still frequently use a pen and paper to record information. Cursive comes in handy. I have smartphones and iPads, but they are still not as handy. Electronic storage of information is useful for me as I am far less likely to loose it and find it easily.

I learned cursive in 2nd grade and I’ve yet to use it beyond signing my name. At this point, cursive is just art.

When a colleague defended print over cursive because it is simpler and easier to read, I told her that "simpler and easier" were two "stupidizers".... (from stupid)
I use cursive.

It will make it harder for them to research anything old such as diaries, letters of correspondence, many documents, ledgers...

I have had a hard time letting go of the teaching of Latin in high school. Cursive will be an easy one to accept.
To me, the idea of cursive is the teaching of small motor skills. That looks to be taken care of with the touch screens?

The most beautiful cursive writing I ever seen was of my uncle that spent half his life in prison due three murders in self defense. He always said "I got bad luck and good aim. I had shot a gun 4 times in my life... 3 hit the target." He did lived in a time of... once you got a reputation of shooting someone. Arguments escalated quickly to the next level and since the first at age 18 disposing of a bully he never got rid of that reputation. He didn't moved out either to a place where nobody knew him so... but damn his letters were beautiful... I know the joke... "he had a lot of practice and a very loose wrist". I heard the joke from him everytime he got complimented.

I don't think it is at all important. I never write cursive, never have. I was taught it in school but hated it so just printed. I have a very successful career and a graduate degree. It hasn't impacted me in the slightest.

What I do regret is not taking typing.

I think that cursive can go away. I use it and like it just fine because it is quicker for me than printing, but the reality is that it isn't being used. Nearly all documents are done on computers and it is, essentially, obsolete. Often we just get so used to an idea that we feel it should be clung to. Like religions... There are so many more important things to teach than cursive. Specifically all things financial from saving, loans, mortgages, etc...

My take: as long as students have to take long blue book essay exams, they should at least have the option of learning cursive. Printing that many pages would be an excruciating process!

My 9-year-old great-nephew is learning cursive in school. It's not dead yet.

It’s transition time, apparently. Though I learned to ‘type’ (keyboard) my senior year of HS, I was the only guy in the room! Having recently worked within several middle schools, it became apparent ‘keyboarding’ is critical … far more so than cursive writing ..that I use only on the rare check. And since a signature can amount to anything -- thinking about it - cursive writing is no doubt the least used yet time-consuming ‘skill’ I’d learned. Good riddance

I think it's becoming more obsolete because most of the writing in schools and in general is done on a computer. I learned it in elementary school, but by the time I reached middle school the teachers would say to write in a way they could read it. Now the only classmates in college who use it have really nice handwriting or are writing extremely fast for notes. Most of our writing assignments are done online now, teachers won't even take any writing assignments that aren't turned in online.
The only use for it now, in my opinion, would reading be historical documents. I think reading and writing cursive could be taught either in high school or college when it's needed. Trying to squeeze it into classes in elementary or middle school just adds more strain with little benefit.