Cursive Writing on its Way out the Door?

According to this article at the Washington Post, cursive writing could become a thing of the past.

The Handwriting Is on the Wall
Researchers See a Downside as Keyboards Replace Pens in Schools

By Margaret Webb Pressler

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 11, 2006; Page A01

The computer keyboard helped kill shorthand, and now it's threatening to finish off longhand.

When handwritten essays were introduced on the SAT exams for the class of 2006, just 15 percent of the almost 1.5 million students wrote their answers in cursive. The rest? They printed. Block letters.

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Thanks to technology and computers, the need for handwritten letters are giving way to typed ones.
Actually I wouldn't mind it so much. When in school, learning to write in cursive was like learning a second alphabet. I can still remember how hard it was to learn and I dread it for my own kids. I agree that it might still need to be taught in schools as a means of being able to read it when needed, but other than that, I don't see the use for it.