FWIW since so many people here seem set on the idea that cursive is archaic / useless today, Montessori schools still teach cursive before print because the flowing letters are easier for kids and more similar to drawing, and all the exercises they do around letter tracing.
The result is that kids in Montessori learn to read faster and earlier. (They're usually writing in cursive first, which gives them a foundation of the letters and their phonetic sounds, before they begin reading exercises in earnest.)
Kids with dysgraphia sometimes can successfully write in cursive and cannot write in block letters. I don't know where I fall on how hard it should be taught, generally, but it's clearly very helpful to some kids.
There seems to be a whole cultural battle pitting people who don't give a damn, and hardcore cursive fans who will make shift studies after studies to somewhat prove that cursive is the bees' knees. I get the feeling Montessori would mostly appeal to the later crowd.
Somewhere in it there must be real science, but damn is it hard to find.
At this point I'm more prone to take an out of context look, and try to assert what exactly happened where cursive got phased out, or more generally, how it goes for cultures that don't teach cursive at all.
For instance do Korean kids face severe issues because cursive hangul isn't taught in school ?
If not, we can go back looking at it like a preference or an alternative that can help in very specific scenarii.
The result is that kids in Montessori learn to read faster and earlier. (They're usually writing in cursive first, which gives them a foundation of the letters and their phonetic sounds, before they begin reading exercises in earnest.)