Assembly bill 435 is making it's way through the state assembly. It's sole purpose is to make the teaching of cursive writing in state elementary schools mandatory. I as everyone else of my age believe cursive should still be taught in schools but I wouldn't go so far as to legislate it as a requirement. Our state standards include teaching cursive writing but that is held as a model for schools and not a requirement. Many schools have dropped it in favor of teaching keyboarding. I looked at the bill and those sponsoring it to find out what the deal was. The legislator who introduced it said "cursive writing stimulates different parts of the brain" and "improves the education of students". That sounded as general as a horoscope. (You know: 'You'll talk with someone interesting today.' or 'Time to reflect on your motivations.') The legislator did note a study in their references so I looked it up. There was only one study, done in 2014 using 65 college students. It showed the 30 some students in the study that took notes in lectures by laptop took better notes but didn't retain the material as well as the other half of the study group that took notes long hand. There was no peer review or replication that I saw of this study. Meanwhile ten state-wide associations of teachers and/or school boards have come out against the bill while no professional education groups are in favor of it. There is also a marvelous conspiracy theory circulating that maintains not teaching cursive is a plot to keep people from reading the U.S. Constitution in it's original form. Therefore if you can't read cursive writing you are un-American. I swear! Elementary schools shouldn't worry about cursive and instead focus on teaching logic.
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