At my junior high, there was a big emphasis on the English program. When first enrolled in the school, every new student had to take two weeks of 'pronunciation' classes. Every possible sound that could be made with each letter was beaten into our heads. That's fine and dandy and it also helped to become a near-perfect speller. I find many adults are actually terible spellers, but that's another story.
To go along with this emphasis on language, pronunciation, and spelling was handwriting. Every damn day we would spend at least an hour writing cursive in our journals. Every day! I still have nightmares of getting the precise curve on the letter 's' or making sure the connection between a 'r' and 'a' was seamless.
Sadly, I have somewhat sloppy handwriting and hard as I tried, I did no better than earning a 'C' in handwriting. That's where my issue lies.
Grading handwriting? It's ludicrous. If every letter can be deciphered and read, who cares what your handwriting looks like? No matter how much someone may focus on their handwriting, it's only going to be so pretty.
Now getting graded in junior high isn't a big deal. But what if that went on in high school? Can you imagine being a perfect student but you get your GPA lowered due to your handwriting grade? What if your GPA was lowered to the point of not getting into the college that you wanted? All because your handwriting wasn't "pretty" or "good" enough.
Teach handwriting. That's fine. But don't grade and put the fear or writing into kids.
One last note...At this junior high of mine, they put the fear of god into all of us that we would never make int through high school, college, and never get a decent job if we couldn't write perfect cursive. So what do I find 14 years later? I've never had to write in cursive once!