LANSING, MI – State Rep. Brenda Carter held up a letter from her late son, Brian, who wrote when he was 9 years old that he wanted to be a police officer.
Brian grew up to be an Army veteran, the Pontiac Democratic representative told the Michigan House Education Committee on Tuesday. When her son died, Carter said she gave that note to his daughter.
“This letter here was written 25 years ago,” Carter told the committee, “but my granddaughter was able to read it because she could read in cursive.”
Carter is leading the charge on House Bill 4064, which encourages Michigan schools to put cursive writing into curriculum. The legislation has 22 cosponsors, all Democrats.
“This bill allows the Department of Education to develop or adopt plans to teach cursive as a type of penmanship into schools, and to make those plans available to schools,” she said.
Michigan, a local control education state, currently has no statewide curriculum to teach students cursive writing. The Michigan Department of Education also doesn’t track school districts teaching it.
Under Carter’s bill, the department is “strongly encouraged” to create a “model program of instruction” for cursive before the 2024-25 school year. Districts are then “strongly encouraged” to implement the program.
If the bill becomes law, department spokesperson William DiSessa told MLive, the department knows multiple cursive programs it could provide to districts.
“MDE supports the bill believing there’s value in cursive writing,” DiSessa said. “The law does not mandate use of cursive writing, but rather lifts up the conversation regarding the body of research connected to cursive, and other values of the practice for local districts to consider as each develops or updates its writing curriculum.”
Twenty-one states currently require schools to teach cursive, noted Carter, who said it’s “a well-known fact among the scientific community that children and adults alike need to learn and develop handwriting skills.”
She noted a 2020 Norwegian study that found children are better able to store information in their memories when they wrote in cursive, as apposed to typing or drawing words.
“[Cursive writing] has been considered an essential precursor for further academic success, and the skill is typically acquired during childhood in societies with a strong literacy tradition,” the authors wrote.
The benefits of teaching cursive to Michigan students, Carter said, are more than just learning how to sign their names.
“By passing this bill, we can help children develop better memories and improve their cognitive skills,” she said.
Monday was the first hearing for Carter’s bill, and the committee did not vote on it. The only question came from chair Matt Koleszar, D-Plymouth, who made sure the bill is not a mandate.
Representatives from the education department and Oakland Schools, an intermediate school district based in Waterford, submitted their support to the committee but did not speak.
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2023-03-07 20:00:00Z
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