According to Chris Tynski of the Allison Media Group, cursive was once a mark of intellect and social prestige. In the 1940s, however, schools began teaching print script along with cursive, and by 1960, educational studies were beginning to question its necessity. Since then, advocates of removing cursive from the curriculum have argued that it's gradually becoming more irrelevant. According to fourth-grade teacher Dustin Ellis in an article on the California Teachers Association website, children typically learn cursive in the third grade, but rarely use it. Consequently, the College Board indicates that 85 percent of students abandon cursive altogether.
According to the sustainable living organization Innovateus, cursive has been gradually replaced by the speed and convenience of word-processing. While formal communication was once written in cursive, many of these documents are now typed instead. However, handwriting is not entire obsolete; printing your name is still required on many legal documents and personal etiquette demands that thank you notes and other correspondence be written in personal handwriting. Many advocates of cursive removal, such as Ellis, suggest that teaching print should be enough to meet students' future handwriting needs.
Another argument against cursive is that it just isn't neat. In bygone eras, cursive was used for both personal and professional correspondence. However, Tynski writes that because schools don't reinforce these skills, cursive is now too illegible for consistent use. This is especially true for important documents, since messy writing can lead to significant errors when forms are processed. Ellis adds that, while cursive is said to be faster than printing because it requires continuous contact between the pen and paper, students actually take longer to write in cursive because of the precision it requires.
Advocates of eliminating cursive also believe there isn't enough time to teach it. Along with Ellis's findings, Innovateus states that the time it takes to master cursive could be better allocated to other subjects. For example, the PBS News Hour reported that other countries are surpassing the U.S. in math, science and reading, make these subjects more relevant. Although it isn't a perfect solution, Ellis suggests sending students home with a cursive education packet to complete within a month, giving them some exposure to cursive rather than none.