This week, after Arizona Republican and Democrat legislators spent hours fighting over SB1516, a bill that would undo all of the campaign finance reforms, Governor Doug Ducey wasted no time to sign the bill. While lamakers gave little time to kids this year, they did pass SB1197, which would have required that students be taught to learn to write in cursive.
Ducey spent even less time killing the cursive bill when he vetoed it on Thursday.
Ducey claimed that he “strongly” believes that cursive handwriting “must be taught in public schools, there’s already a process in place to ensure that happens.”
The only problem with Ducey’s claim is that the dysfunctional state Board of Education has made any change to the state’s academic standards impossible.
“I have communicated to the State Board of Education that the new academic standards must include instruction in cursive reading and writing and that by the 5th grade, students should be able to read and write documents through legible cursive handwriting.”
Education activists hope that Ducey has been more explicit in his communication with the Board on the issue of cursive writing than he has been on the review and revision of the State’s standards.