Strands of Standards is an Anti-Pattern

Strands of Standards is an Anti-Pattern
Tom Hoffman, Tuttle SVC, February 3, 2014
Although Liping Ma's article is a critique of the reorganization of mathematics instruction, it offers lessons applicable to the redefinition of learning into the acquisition of competencies in general. Tom Hoffman summarizes it nicely: "Ma's argument is that American elementary school mathematics was profoundly but nearly imperceptibly transformed by the switch from what she calls a 'core-subject model' to a 'strand' model. The difference to Ma is that a 'core-subject' '...is a collection of skills or a self-contained subject with principles similar to those of the discipline of mathematics." Now a strand isn't the same as a competency, but the problem is the same. More...