We should not teach students how to write in cursive.

We're not even halfway though the debate yet and you're already asking for votes when not all arguments have been presented? That's a bit premature, don't you think? Anyways, I question your arguments and your sources. You claim that it doesn't matter that cursive is outdated and outmoded when precisely the opposite is true. When I say outdated or outmoded, I mean that something else has already surpassed it or we have no further use for it. For example, that means that cars that need to be hand-cranked to start up are disabled. Sure, there might be some significant benefits to learning how to hand crank one of those cars - it builds up muscle strength, for instance - but that doesn't mean that we'd still want to teach that skill in Driver's Ed. It's not useful anymore (more on that later). Your New York Times source is questionable. The line you cited about stimulating "brain synapses" and synchronicity between hemisphere has no source, and the credentials of the author (an occupational therapist) are not necessarily sufficient to back up such a claim - I'd rather talk to a neurologist about that. Besides, the same thing would apply to print writing too - remember, I'm not arguing that we stop teaching handwriting, just that we stop teaching cursive. Furthermore, to quote the actual article, "With all this said, does cursive need to be fancy with slants, loops and curls? Absolutely not! The emphasis should be on simplicity and function when teaching children cursive" [1] which takes away practically everything from cursive save for the connected letters, meaning you might as well teach to print. As for your Psychology Today source, your claim that you "hit a high level of proficiency and then level out" while being able to "continuously improve[] until one has a high level of legibility", or that you "get good enough to be legible but never get significantly better" or "remaining fairly static" isn't even in the source you cited above it. You have no evidence for this claim whatsoever. While I accept this is mere anecdotal evidence, I can say for a fact that I have known many people who have mastered printing to a very high degree, even more legible than cursive. As for your workplace arguments, I'd like to remind you of how often we actually use cursive in the workplace compared to another skill such as typing. Written letters are less and less common, even short ones - we find ourselves sending anywhere from short memos to long emails, but all electronically - not even a hint of cursive involved. And honestly, cursive isn't going to help you much in getting a job - if you'd need to write for your job, there's a very good chance you're going to be sending in a printed (as in, ink from a mechanical device) copy of your resume and perhaps other materials, but how much is really going to be written out by hand, even in print? For similar reason, you're "important letter that I can't read" argument doesn't work either - whoever is writing the important letter will most likely not have scrawled it out by hand, they'll have typed it. Even if you DO get into such a situation, you don't have to be taught cursive in order to read it (and if for some reason you can't, it's easy to learn in under 60 minutes [2]). Last but not least, there's no way that cursive will increase someone's likelihood of being kept on/hired by any significant amount; employers will care more about your skills, your experience, your productivity, and your ability to work with others far more than they will care about your ability to write loopy letters. Now, with all those arguments out of the way, let's look at some reasons why print is just fine, and what we could be doing with time spent teaching cursive. First of all, even handwriting teacher's don't use cursive as much as you'd expect; nowhere near, in fact. At a conference hosted by a cursive textbook publishing conference it was revealed that only 37 percent of cursive/handwriting TEACHERS used cursive! The majority, 55%, used a hybrid of print and cursive, which not only works but is readable by everyone else. Consider how silly it is to teach students cursive when its teachers don't even use it! Also consider that many of the pro-cursive arguments (such as the argument for self-esteem/confidence presented in your Psychology Today) are more along the lines of pro-handwriting, not pro-cursive. Again, I'm not proposing that we stop teaching handwriting, just that we stop teaching cursive. So,what harm is cursive doing? It's a waste of time! Students are pressured into doing more and more and often are failing to meet standards (low as they sometimes are), so we need students to be doing everything they can at skills that actually benefit them in life. Think of all the things they could be doing instead: math, science, reading, writing, physical activity, typing/programming, or any other academic activity. Come on, is it really worth teaching kids an outdated form of handwriting using dozens of hours of valuable time when they can be learning to read? We need educated students, not students that write connected letters. [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com... [2] http://www.nytimes.com...