Mathematically Correct is pleased to present the suggestions from HOLD on the revisions of the NCTM Standards. Submitted to the Commisssion on the Future of the Standards, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, January 15, 1996.
Standards is their lack of balance.
One can easily accept many separate statements and sentiments expressed in the Standards, but it is the whole that exhibits a strongly one-sided slant. The danger is that each state and organization that is using the Standards as a guiding document will take what it believes is the essence of the Standards and ignore the caveats and admonitions. HOLD is based in California, where we have our own 1992 Mathematics Framework that is supposedly derived from the Standards. When one reviews that framework, one sees how easily the Standards can be misconstrued. If the Standards propose both individual and group learning, but the stress is on group work, then the Calif. Framework talks about group learning as the only approved way to teach.