Nesaie, our generation, and believe me I did not do well in English or spelling, but they no longer are teaching kids cursive writing. We grew up with a grade for penmanship. Remember those classroom signs that had the alphabet letters, and what a letter looked like printed and in cursive?  We learned how to write upper and lower case, and how to actually write a word connecting each letter in longhand.  I think all we teach now is how to print letters.

Maybe because more and more parents both work, maybe homework help with the kids has diminished, practicing handwriting is long gone, along with so many traditional things. So it was easier for the schools to eliminate cursive writing, and consider it "not necessary" for education.  Now every kid has a ipad in school, computers at home, that type and have printers. I wonder at what grade they just expect reports that are computer printed, IMHO reports should all be handwritten through the 12th grade, calculators not allowed in class, no wonder our educational level is down so far.

Now every kid has a cell phone, that can do all these things, and instead of passing notes in class, they are texting all over the world. Alone with that has evolved texting and internet abbreviations that are almost a language in itself.  I don't get most of them, because we were taught how to write things out, but todays generation are savvy to all these texting symbols, emojis, abbreviations, like I just did above (IMHO). 

First day of school we all had teachers tell class, you need a 3-ring notebook, lined paper, pens, pencils, erasers, protractor and ruler, and a list of supplies. You would go out that night with Mom and buy required supplies. schools can no longer require this, because of lawsuits that filed for schools to give all these things to you, consequently teachers do spend money out of their own pockets to supply kids, because many are in poverty, and the school just doesn't provide them. My daughter has given crayons out to kids who have never seen a brand new box of crayons. 

Give it another decade or two, this internet is ruining society, and our educational level will go further down the drain with it.