The argument isn't that cursive is useless, but rather it isn't useful enough to warrant spending the amount of time that is required to drill the muscle memory into children. Learning to read cursive is relatively easy and can be done easily on one's own if they happen to be exposed to cursive writing and need to read it. But no one has a meaningful need to write in cursive because we don't use feather quills anymore.

I spent a considerable amount of time being forced to do something that ultimately my disabilities will never allow me to do. I was degraded and humiliated because I couldn't write cursive. I was punished and told I was lazy and careless and then forced to do it even more than the other students. I still carry shame with me. And it was all essentially pointless; we even knew it at the time!

Shit like this is just about grinding down children and making them good worker units.

Seriously? Even doctors don't write scripts anymore, its all electronic, and far fewer errors are made because of that.

Cursive is an art, and there is nothing wrong with but it has no practical purpose in today's world.

Learning to read and write(printing and typing) are valuable skills but specifically learning cursive is not.

It can also be nice to learn as an art form! But in the same way I wouldn't expect mandatory calligraphy lessons - even though that seems like the more logical thing to introduce if we're talking about developing fine skills and learning how to read or write cursive - I don't really see the point of mandatory cursive lessons.

The option seems reasonable to have as an option. But kids are already so overworked in school, with homework and tests having increased exponentially over the last two decades, that getting to remove one thing off of their curriculum seemed like they were finally getting a break.