Public schools in New Jersey must teach cursive to third, fourth, and fifth graders starting this school year. Gov. Phil Murphy signed the requirement into law on January 19, 2026. Those three grades enrolled 292,585 students in the state's public schools in 2024-25, according to allk12's analysis of federal enrollment data.
New Jersey is one of the latest in a long run of states putting cursive back on the schedule. At least 25 states now require it in some form, according to a count by Popular Science published in March after Pennsylvania passed its law. Education Week counted 21 in 2023.
There is no official list, so the count depends on who is doing it. Some states wrote cursive into law. Others put it in their academic standards or a state board rule, as Iowa did. The Popular Science list also leaves out two states with laws on the books, Idaho and New Jersey, so the true number is likely a little higher.
The states on the list
| States that require cursive, per Popular Science (March 2026) |
|---|
| Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia |
| Also requiring it by law, not on that list: Idaho (2025) and New Jersey (2026) |
The list mixes state laws with academic standards and board rules. Source: Popular Science; Idaho Legislature; New Jersey Department of Education.
The newest laws
Pennsylvania passed House Bill 17, approved February 11, 2026, requiring "instruction in cursive handwriting or joined italics." It took effect April 12, and FOX 29 reported that the state education department will issue guidance on grade levels. "Cursive writing fosters fine motor skills, enhances memory retention and equips students to read foundational documents in their original form," said state Sen. Wayne Langerholc.
New Jersey's law, P.L. 2025, c.284, requires public schools to teach cursive to students in grades three through five, starting in 2026-27.
Idaho passed Senate Bill 1044 in March 2025. The law says Idaho public schools "shall require proficiency in cursive handwriting for students by the end of grade 5" and must start instruction by grade 3.
Kentucky passed Senate Bill 167 in 2024, requiring cursive as a course of study in all elementary schools beginning in the 2025-26 school year.
California passed Assembly Bill 446 in 2023. It requires handwriting instruction in grades 1 through 6 to include cursive or joined italics, and the state education department says it applies starting January 1, 2024.
Most of the other states on the list aim at the same window, grades 3 through 5. California's reach down to first grade is on the wide end.
How cursive fell out of school
The Common Core standards, which most states adopted starting around 2010, set expectations for what students should learn in English language arts and math. "The standards don't expressly mention cursive writing," Education Week wrote in 2023. They do call for keyboarding skills in grades 3 through 5.
Sue Pimentel, a lead writer of the standards, explained the choice to Education Week in 2016: "cursive writing takes an enormous amount of instructional time."
Is it worth the time?
Supporters point to research on handwriting and the brain. A 2024 study in Frontiers in Psychology by Audrey van der Meer and F.R. (Ruud) van der Weel of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology recorded brain activity as people wrote by hand and typed. It found handwriting produced connectivity patterns the authors described as "crucial for memory formation and for encoding new information." The 36 participants were university students, not children, and they wrote cursive with a digital pen on a screen.
Skeptics say handwriting matters but the style does not. Steve Graham, an Arizona State University professor who studies writing instruction, told Education Week that "there's not a lot of difference between how legible the two scripts are and how fast they can be produced."
Teachers are split, too. In a 2023 Education Week survey of 1,545 educators, 43% favored cursive and 57% favored keyboarding.
Sources
Popular Science: States where cursive is taught
New Jersey Department of Education: Cursive handwriting instruction
Pennsylvania General Assembly: House Bill 17 (2025-26)
FOX 29: Pennsylvania schools will be required to teach cursive again
Spokesman-Review: Pennsylvania mandates cursive writing instruction
Idaho Legislature: Senate Bill 1044 (2025)
Kentucky General Assembly: Senate Bill 167 (2024)
California Department of Education: Cursive instruction FAQs
Education Week: More states require schools to teach cursive writing
Education Week: Why don't the Common Core standards include cursive writing?
Frontiers in Psychology: Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity
Enrollment figures from allk12's analysis of National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data, 2024-25.
