It has been a disaster from the start, but it got worse and worse with time. I remember reading that the schools would give the children iPads and other things just so they would sign up for that school. Basically they would bribe the children to get the parents to send them so that they could make more money. And that's only the top of the iceberg …
(PS: I changed the title from "free school" to "charter school" which is the correct english name for what is described in the article.)
Cursive writing helps in developing fine motor skills.
Kids of today have vastly better fine motor skills due to extensive usage of computer mouse, gamepads and touch screens.
Those are different kinds of fine motor skills than used when writing cursive. Ideally kids should be exposed to both.