The Common Core State Standards Initiative is sponsored by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.
It is an attempt to develop K-12 education standards that apply across states.
Keyboarding is a requirement, cursive handwriting is not. As a result children in many states are no longer being taught handwriting and penmanship.
Texas does not subscribe to the Common Core standards.
Teaching to specific tests to the exclusion of teaching life skills will ruin education.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Cursive is an important part of human development. I started cursive in 3rd grade with dip pens and ink bottles. Fortunately, kids don’t have to dip anymore, but they should still learn to express their thoughts in writing, not QWERTY. We learn cooking in spite of microwave dinners.
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“Cursive is an important part of human development.”
Can you name one book you have read in the last, oh say, FOREVER, that was written in cursive script?
Of course, humans meaning English speaking only people? What about all those cultures that do not write in English script? That is a very provincial statement Jerry.
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Huh? Anyone who uses the Latin alphabet uses cursive, not just English (i.e., Spanish, Italian, French speakers and others). German speakers also use cursive. I believe cursive is important to know. Otherwise you’ll have college students taking notes by printing. Or do they already keyboard class notes into their notebook computers? Sorry, but Ramnath Subranamian rules.
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Let us look at this blog, El Pasospeak, as an example: Did any of you first write out your response in cursive, and then type it up? Probably not. Have you EVER read a book that was printed in cursive? Probably not. Newspaper? No. I suspect you wold be hard pressed to find a website, out of the millions of websites that exist, that are written in cursive anything.
And Ramnath Subramanian is a specious fool…sorry, but he is.
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Dawg — I’m still waiting to hear how students take notes these days. Really, I want to know. And do you really think only English speakers use cursive? Best think carefully before you throw stones and declare fools. Your biases are showing.
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At one point, shoeing a horse was considered a “life skill” as was learning how to ride one.We also had classes for girls to learn how to be “good homemakers.” Sliderules and how to use them were essential knowledge at one point. We no longer teach those skills because they are no longer an essential part of modern living. Cursive handwriting is such a case. There is very little evidence that anyone needs to learn CURSIVE handwriting in order to communicate. Printing works just fine. As a matter of fact and totally anecdotally, I have friends that write in printed form and have never written in cursive in their lives. They have no trouble existing in society.
Conversely, there are highly educated people that were taught that particular life skill and write totally incomprehensibly. Medical doctors come to mind. There is no correlation between success in life and the ability to write in cursive format.
There is however, plenty of evidence that the ABILITY to communicate leads to success. And in today’s world (Which is the one we are teaching our students to live in) the ability to use electronic communication is essential for success. Want to communicate electronically? Gotta use a keyboard.
Brutus, I gotta say you sound like the old man yelling at the kids to get off their lawn here. Perhaps you are reading too much Ramnath Subranamian in the El Paso Times.
As for the Common Core standards that you allude to, they do not specifically dismiss cursive writing. States and school districts can choose to adopt cursive or not in their curricula.
The question is however, does the knowledge of how to write in cursive make someone a better communicator? Or does it simply make old people happy?
I suspect for you Brutus, it is the later.
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Balmorhea, students take notes using a wide variety of methods from writing, to recording, to laptops to video taping to doing visual note taking where students draw and write. At some campuses and some universities, professors and teachers video tape their lectures and post them online. There is no ONE WAY / Right Way. Notetaking has changed a lot over the years from paper notebooks to iPads. To say something like students ?\”MUST LEARN CURSIVE in order to take good notes” is simply incorrect. That is one way of taking notes.
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Please do not jump to conclusions. I did not say students must learn cursive to take good notes. I agree there are many avenues to learning and I’m glad to hear about all the options. This is not a discussion of cursive vs electronic print. Why not both? Cursive is not difficult to learn. If I had a school age child I’d give her/him the opportunity to learn it even if it was not in the curriculum. It is only one avenue for communication but all avenues should be encouraged.
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