Joined-Up Writing

Look at the tattoos on the face of the young man (in the mug shot) above. The largest tattoo on his forehead is the most controversial not because it is a tattoo on his face but because of the script. 
A reporter for the Daily Mail interpreted this as a misspelling of Genius, with a J instead of a G. The man countered by saying that the letter was “a nicely formed cursive capital” G. Commenters in the U.K. were generally baffled by this claim.
Important points: the Daily Mail is British; the young man is American, from Cincinnati. There are many different styles of so-called “cursive” handwriting, and these have changed over the years; for roughly a century, American and British schools have diverged significantly in the sort of cursive, or joined-up (as they call it in the UK) handwriting they teach. The result is that the initial letter above looks like an ordinary cursive G to many Americans (me included) but can be interpreted by most Britons only as some sort of weird ornamented J.  

Why do I bring this up you ask? Well, this is the reason Abby walked out of school this past week sobbing uncontrollably. Her teacher says she cannot read most of Abby's joined-up writing. Therefore Abby is not allowed to use a fountain pen on her schoolwork like the rest of her classmates. This is the privilege you get when you have mastered joined-up writing. Abby has been diligently practicing her cursive handwriting for months from a workbook I bought her in Chicago. I am now realizing that that is our problem. They do not do the fancy G, S, F, Q or Z here. The joined-up writing here is different. Not so loopy. Children here have also been doing the joined-up writing since they began school whereas Abby came from the US and they hadn't started it yet. (She would have started learning it most likely in 2nd grade, I assume.)  
Since I have been researching this online, I have found that many states in the U.S. have dropped cursive writing as a mandatory skill that is taught all together. They choose to focus on typing and computer skills instead saying that cursive handwriting is obsolete. Am I just old fashioned because I find that a bit sad, anyone else?