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Math lesson time. Math scores: Manitoba, 468; Yukon, 469; Newfoundland and Labrador, 472; Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan, each 474. That's five provinces within 1.2 percentage points of each other. Put another way: Billy got 80 per cent on his test. Sally got 81 per cent on her test. Math lesson, part two: The creators of this test, the Council of Ministers of Education, rightly points out that the margin of error on these scores is greater than the differences in these scores. In plain English, that means that the statisticians who crunch the data are saying that the scores are basically equivalent.

Manitoba remains the child-poverty capital of Canada

Math lesson, part three: Manitoba was the only jurisdiction in Canada to have 100 per cent of the selected schools do the PCAP assessment.

First, great teachers tended to set big goals

they avidly recruited students and their families into the process; they maintained focus, ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning; they planned exhaustively and purposefully—for the next day or the year ahead—by working backward from the desired outcome; and they worked relentlessly, refusing to surrender to the combined menaces of poverty, bureaucracy, and budgetary shortfalls.