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Jason Kenney’s focus is on uniting the Alberta right, but he delivers a welcome message on a number of local issues, including educational reform and the government abuse of photo radar.

In the next few months I plan to talk to each candidate running for leader of the Progressive Conservatives. Kenney is a good place to start as he represents the most abrupt change in the party’s direction, including on the education file.

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First the PCs, and now the NDP, have downplayed the explicit teaching of reading, writing, science and math in our schools, while embracing discovery and inquiry learning theories, with their focus on project and group work. In the current curriculum rewrite, the teachers’ union is a full partner for the first time and the NDP is also pushing the notion that students be taught in school to be “agents of change” on social issues.

“I’m very concerned about the direction of the NDP’s curriculum reforms,” Kenney says. “I think parents have had enough of pedagogical fads and political agendas in our schools. The focus should be on teaching knowledge and relevant skills with measurable outcomes in literacy and numeracy. In a province where we’ve seen the number of innumerate students double in the past decade, according to the OECD’s PISA measurements, we should be focused on turning that around.”