Welcome to my soapbox — er, podium. This is where, on the first day of each month, I share information (and frequently an opinion) on a school issue or concern. If there is ever a time when you disagree with my position, or have information that you think I need to know about, please use the Contact button and drop me a line. I love to hear from those who think I'm on the right track, and I'm willing to listen to those who don't.

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Loop-de-Loops

Kelli Davis and her eighth-grade daughter live in Charleston. West Virginia. Last fall Kelli's daughter handed her mom a form that required both the parent's and the student's signature. Kelli signed the paper and handed it back to her daughter.

"I assumed she knew how to write her name in cursive," said Kelli, but when I looked at her signature I could hardly believe it. It looked like something a small child might write."

The eighth grader was a little embarrassed, but said she hadn't practiced all those loops that join letters together for a long time and she had "kind of" forgotten how to do it. The girl's confession prompted Kelli to call the school, and that led to another surprise. West Virginia's largest school system teaches cursive writing, but only in the third grade.

If you're a parent reading this you may be shocked. You might even be thinking, "I'm certainly glad that's not the way they do things in MY child's school. But if you're a teacher you're probably thinking, "Yup, that's the way we do it too. The third grade teacher is responsible for teaching cursive writing, and after that the kid's pretty much on his own. Maybe that's the reason a lot of adults print (manuscript) rather than write (cursive)."

But is this development something that should cause us great concern? Probably not. Cursive writing doesn't need the emphasis it did years ago, primarily because of all the technology skills we now teach. Schools across the country have all but pushed what our grandparents knew as penmanship, into the bone pile.

Cursive writing began its decline a couple of decades ago, and may be close to extinction. Much of its demise is due to the fact that students are doing more work on computers, including writing. Next year the writing test of the National Assessment of Educational Progress will require eighth and eleventh graders to do their work on computers, as will fourth graders in 2019.

"People rarely use handwriting when they are communicating with others," says Katie Van Shuys, a professor at DePaul University and president of one division of the National Council of Teachers of English. "Students are accustomed to using their computers to do their writing, and they simply don't see a need for practicing cursive handwriting."

And I don't disagree with Van Shuys' assessment. Furthermore, teachers don't have time to make kids practice all those fancy loop-de-loops. They're too busy cramming for the next NCLB test that will prove the teacher's accountability!