Allow me to weigh in with a contrary viewpoint. At first, I was “shocked and amazed” that cursive wasn’t being taught in (many) schools. However, on reflection, I think it’s about time that cursive was dropped from the universal, mandatory part of the curriculum.
Cursive made sense, from the era of quill pens, through to the era of ball-point pens. Cursive reduces the number of times that a nib is lifted from, and brought down upon the paper — thus reducing the number of times that an ink blot is likely to be made. Until relatively recently, there were no spaces between written words — people simply wrote whole sentences, without lifting the nib. That speeded up the process of writing with a quill pen, and reduced the ink-blot problem. There’s no ink-blot problem with ball-point pens — and there’s certainly no ink-blot problem with typed text. Therefore, there’s no compelling reason to continue writing in cursive.
As for signatures — students can be taught to scribble out their name in cursive (or a graphic resembling cursive); without having to write everything in cursive. Most people’s signatures bear little resemblance to other cursive writing — and that’s a good thing, from a security point of view.
Anyone interested in perusing historic documents could learn to read cursive in short order.
So, you agree it is an easy enough skill, so TEACH IT!
Anyone can figure out history, English, math, too, in short order. The fact is there isn’t enough time in life to stop and learn.
From my research, your comment regarding evolving from quill/fountain pen to ball point is spot on. Writing changed as a result. I’m a mix breed. I use fountain pens for just about everything and I print.