The art of writing

It's slightly off-topic, but I was dismayed to see this article in my local paper the other day:

Colorado schools are beginning to write off cursive handwriting

Really?  Really?  Just because we are living in "an increasingly paperless world" means that kids don't have to learn to write legibly?  I mean, have we stopped teaching math because we have calculators?

Maybe it's old fashioned of me, but I think that handwriting is a skill that children ought to be learning, no matter how paperless our world gets.  They will have to be able to write something that someone else can read at some point, such as a note to a lover or child, or, heck, a shopping list.  And let's face it, even with schools teaching cursive, there are still plenty of educated people whose handwriting I can't even begin to make sense of.

Like I said, it's a little off-topic, but maybe not much.  I've always been fascinated with my own handwriting, and it went through several transformations before I arrived at a script that I like and use regularly.  I still prefer to write on the computer, because I can type so much faster than I can write, but I'm proud of having nice handwriting.

What about you?  Do you think this is a skill that we should continue to teach, despite our digital age?  Do you think you benefited from learning cursive when you were in school?