EDUCATION - Cursive Hand Writing vs Common Core English Standards

The problem is the misinterpretation of "Common Core."  Look up "core" in any dictionary and the overall interpretation is core being the central part of any structure or idea, it is NOT the whole thing, it is the support for things around it.

The problem is educators taking "Common Core Education Standards" as being the only thing in education, rather the core that you build your education program around.  "Common Core Education Standards" should be added and, when necessary, modified to fit local schools and their children.

In the context of this article, cursive hand writing need NOT be dropped from education.

Another comment.  The problem of time in the classroom to teach cursive highlights one of the more important problems in U.S. education, the length of our classes and K-12 education on the whole being too short to teach what our children need to know in today's world.  One of the factors in other nations that puts them ahead of the U.S. in education is they have longer class-day and longer education overall.  The U.S. needs to think about expanding class hours AND think about going to K-14 education so our children have time to learn what they need it today's world.  Note, as posted before, some states are adding Community College (2yrs) courses to their education programs.

"Why some schools still insist on lessons in elegant cursive" PBS NewsHour 5/6/2014

Excerpt

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  The writing may be on the wall for something that used to be standard fare in our elementary schools.  It turns out that the elegant script of cursive handwriting is barely being taught anymore.

The NewsHour’s April Brown reports as part of our American Graduate project, a public media initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

APRIL BROWN:  For centuries, cursive was a pillar of elementary education and a crucial tool for recording and preserving history.  But the slow, yet steady decline of this handwriting technique can be traced to the 1970s.

Since then, school budgets have gotten smaller and more emphasis has been placed on both standardized testing and technology in the classroom. In 2010, 45 states and the District of Columbia began implementing what is known as the Common Core English language arts standards, a set of K-12 benchmarks that made no mention of cursive whatsoever.

STEVE GRAHAM, Education Professor, Arizona State University:  Cursive is the odd man out.  It has been left out of the mix.

APRIL BROWN:  Steve Graham is a professor of education at Arizona State University.  He says Common Core calls for handwriting to be taught in kindergarten and first grade only, meaning that, going forward, many students will learn manuscript, also known as printing, but never get to cursive.

STEVE GRAHAM:  Kids are taught how to write in cursive in most schools now in the U.S. right now at second and third grade.  With Common Core state standards, that is going to change.

APRIL BROWN:  The role of cursive in our nation’s history has often been cited as one reason to keep it.  Many founding documents were written in ink with curly-Q letters spelling out the birth of a nation.