Your signature is a very important thing that most adults use multiple times a day. You sign for anything you buy with a credit card, you sign important documents and you write checks. In the very least, students need to be instructed on how to sign their names legibly. There are other reasons to teach cursive such as honing fine motor skills and being able to read cursive documents, but I believe the signature is probably the most important, after all, you could hone fine motor skills by drawing or painting and all of our historical documents are available online or in books in printed form. Although I think cursive should be taught, I don't think it is more important than learning to type and I definitely think time should be devoted to both.
I think that being an efficient typist is also very important. It is especially important now that kids are required to type on their standardized tests. It is also an essential skill for many jobs. As we have discussed in many of our classes, giving standardized tests on the computer often puts some students at a disadvantage because they don't know how to type correctly. I feel that this is a bigger problem than not being able to read cursive. We live in a time when computers aren't preferred, they are essential. When I was in middle school we had a whole class devoted to keyboarding. I am so thankful for that class because it has made my life so much easier. The skills I acquired in that class served me well through school and will continue to serve me through my professional life. To me, learning keyboarding is of utmost importance. Hunting and pecking is by no means efficient and just because kids can text, it doesn't mean they can type.
Most people can't remember the last time they wrote or read cursive, but they use a keyboard all the time. I don't feel keyboarding should replace cursive, but I definitely think keyboarding is a much more valuable skill. We need to prepare our students to function in society and leaving out cursive writing or leaving out typing would leave our students at a disadvantage. I hope that our schools can find time to teach both cursive writing and typing. In order to communicate effectively, I think both typing and cursive writing need to be taught. How important one is over the other, isn't as important as finding a way to teach both of these skills.
Here are some articles that sup port cursive writing:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/us/28cursive.html?_r=0
http://time.com/2820780/five-reasons-kids-should-still-learn-cursive-writing/
And here is an article that supports typing in classrooms:
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/425018/out-of-touch-with-typing/
This is a really cute video of kids reacting to the question "Do kids need to learn cursive?"