Word Prisms

This quid quo pro proviso of the United Conservative Party requires that a province must first be prosperous before a province can be caring and compassionate. From this statement, a number of questions arise. First, at what point can a province consider itself prosperous? A recent article in the Globe and Mail addressed the complaints of Alberta's UCP leadership candidates about equalization payments to other provinces. It states that Quebec receives "$11 billion in equalization payments enjoying a budget surplus while Alberta has a $10.5 billion deficit and receives none." The reason for this seeming injustice is that Quebec taxes are almost twice that of Alberta's. If both provinces were to tax their citizens at the Canadian average, Quebec would suffer a deficit and Alberta would be enjoying the surplus. However, implementing a sales tax would be tantamount to political suicide for any ruling party in Alberta. That's despite the fact that, according to

David Staples replied to my blog which was a bit of a surprise because, no offence to myself, I wouldn't have. He breaks his comment into five different points. Point 1 states that my fight is with cognitive scientists and math profs, not him. He continues by stating that the science is settled here for now and I'm getting it wrong. Cognitive scientists are clear that fluency in basic arithmetic is a pre-condition to deeper understanding in math, to the ability to move on [to] do more complex math problems. I must admit I had to reread my blog to understand what he was trying to say. After all, I thought I made it clear that I didn't know what made some students good at math and others not. However, after a reread, I realized that he's doubling down on his hubris by claiming that I may not know but he does . In short, it's "fluency in basic arithmetic." For support, I needed to go down to point 5, where he states that my "own research is unimpres

David Staples - Hockey Report David Staples is an interesting kind of guy. His primary interest is hockey which he writes about and produces a podcast about entitled, "The Cult of Hockey." Nevertheless, that doesn't stop him from pronouncing his expertise in other areas. For the last four or five years, one of his primary concerns has been Alberta's math curriculum. Why he should write so prolifically on the subject or feel so passionately is a bit of a mystery. More mysterious is why he considers himself an expert on the subject. Alberta Education just released the results of the Provincial Achievement Tests and Diploma Exams. For the first time, the students were given a written, no-calculator portion of the test which 1/3 of Grade 6 students failed. In other respects the results for both PATs and Diploma exams were much the same as last year. Grade 9 math PAT results were slightly down from last year while the Diploma results in math were slightly up. Pretty

In his campaign to become the United Conservative Party leader, Jason Kenney claims "it's time to Unite Alberta and bring back the Alberta Advantage."  He includes a commitment to unity in his banner 'Jason Kenney - Experience, Leadership, Unity.' Ironically, he's the most divisive politician to enter Alberta Politics in recent memory. He uses dog whistle politics to question the heritage of First Nations people, the right of LGBTQ students to join a Gay Straight Association in school without being outed by their parents, accused the NDP of an ideology conspiracy and the use of social engineering to indoctrinate our young people, and called the politics of millennials a product of hardwiring collectivist ideas and identity politics.  Lots of people hate Rachel Notley. She called Albertans the embarrassing cousins when referring to Alberta's environmental record; a huge strategic mistake probably the consequence of hubris after having just won a