A Washington Post article states what we've known for a while now.. 'The Handwriting Is on the Wall'. Rather than writing in cursive, the majority of us are choosing to write in block letters. In handwritten essays on the SAT tests from the class of 2006, only 15% used cursive. It's time to bury it. Most agree, but a few academics are sticking it out:

[A]cademics who specialize in writing acquisition argue that it's important cognitively, pointing to research that shows children without proficient handwriting skills produce simpler, shorter compositions, from the earliest grades.

and..

Scholars who study original documents say the demise of handwriting will diminish the power and accuracy of future historical research. And others simply lament the loss of handwritten communication for its beauty, individualism and intimacy.

The first point is a correlation implies causation logical fallacy. Research shows that children without proficient handwriting skills produce simpler, shorter compositions, but it ignores that a student who's interested in writing in the first place will probably be eager enough to learn both good composition and good handwriting. Just because these correlate doesn't mean good handwriting causes good composition, much like smelling bad doesn't cause homelessness.

Those scholars lamenting the 'loss of beauty, individualism, and intimacy' clearly don't read much modern handwriting. I've seen some extremely beautiful and expressive 'regular' writing. Girls' handwriting can be interesting. Some even put hearts instead of dots above their i's and j's, for instance. Block handwriting needn't be dull or simplistic. You can write a single level or double a, you can write lower-case 'z' in a few ways, and digits have numerous representations.

So I say let's kill cursive and focus on actually keeping physical writing alive as a medium (one that is quickly dying) than bicker about the style used.