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the radical right republicans now shoving cursive down our throats. oh, the agony!

Interesting headline.

North Carolina Republicans complete ‘breathtaking’ changes in state laws.

This sets up the question of how an evenly divided (Obama narrowly won in 2008; narrowly lost in 2012) state will respond to an agenda pushed from out in the right… or, if it matters considering some policy changes involve — restricting voting and gerry mandering things shut.
(That last bit is why the 2010 mid term elections sting the Democrats — election results are temporal, but boundary lines are shut in place for a decade.)

The party controlled the entire lawmaking process in North Carolina for the first time in more than a century, and top legislators made their ambitions clear. Big changes were coming.
The leader of a conservative political organization left the meeting calling the agenda “breathtaking.”
After the session, the description seemed like an understatement.

But something strikes me as a little amusing in this litany of policies pushed by the state legislator and signed by the governor.

Once the new laws take effect, the new North Carolina will require photo identification at the polls, levy a flat income tax that reduces rates for many, make it harder to get an abortion, offer less generous unemployment benefits, require cursive-writing education in schools, give low-income families vouchers for private schools, require fewer government regulations on businesses, resume executions for capital crimes and allow concealed handguns in bars and restaurants.

Wait… did I miss something here?
 require cursive-writing education in schools
Hm.
The state House of Representatives unanimously passed legislation Thursday requiring North Carolina elementary school students to learn cursive handwriting and to memorize multiplication tables.
Hm.  So, it’s one of those “throw two unrelated items and force you to vote for both items as one” bills.  (Can I get the line item veto?)
With legislators fearing that cursive handwriting is becoming a lost skill and that students are relying too much on calculators, the bill drew no opposition. The normally combative arguments on the House floor were replaced with laughter Thursday about whether anyone would vote no.

But this school year, cursive supporters became more upset when North Carolina became one of 45 states to implement the “Common Core” standards in language arts and mathematics. Common Core – aimed at providing uniformity in what’s being taught in classrooms nationally – doesn’t mention cursive.

Individual school districts decide whether to teach cursive.

The backlash over the lack of cursive in Common Core has resulted in California, Georgia, Idaho and Massachusetts reinstituting cursive as a requirement.

That list is two Democratic majority states and two Republican majority states.

So.  Why is this thrown into the litany of hyper ideological partisan moves made by the North Carolina state government?  Is it just a force of habit?
(Cue South Park upon the kids entering the fourth grade, and seeing the cursive hand writing alphabet on the wall: “it’s like they speak a whole different language!”)

This entry was posted on Monday, July 29th, 2013 at 9:09 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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