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Author

Patrick R. Gibbons

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

Patrick Gibbons is public affairs manager at Step Up for Students and a research fellow for the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. A former teacher, he lived in Las Vegas, Nev., for five years, where he worked as an education writer and researcher. He can be reached at (813) 498.1991 or emailed at pgibbons@stepupforstudents.org. Follow Patrick on Twitter: at @PatrickRGibbons and @redefinEDonline.

AnalysisCoronavirus / COVID-19Demographic ResearchEducation ChoiceFeaturedSchool Choice

Poll shows support for school choice at record high a year into COVID-19 pandemic

Patrick R. Gibbons April 8, 2021
Patrick R. Gibbons

According to a new poll conducted by Real Clear Opinion Research and sponsored by the American Federation for Children, 71% of American voters now support school choice, up from 64% a year ago.

This is the highest recorded support for school choice since the Federation began polling with sample sizes of more than 800 registered voters.

Researchers asked respondents:

School choice gives parents the right to use the tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their child’s needs. Generally speaking, would you say you support or oppose the concept of school choice?

According to the poll, which received responses from 2,009 registered voters, 66% of Black participants and 68% of Hispanic participants said yes. Opinion among Black voters remained steady over last year’s results, but Hispanics saw a 4-point gain while support among white voters increased from 67% to 73% this year.

Democrats were less likely to support school choice than Republicans, but support was still strong, with 69% supporting the concept of school choice compared to 75% of Republicans.

This year’s poll also asked voters if they would support giving public funds to pay for private school, home school or virtual school if public schools did not open full time.

Researchers found 65% of voters supported the idea. Support was strongest among Asian voters at 69%, with 63% of Black voters and 60% of Hispanic voters agreeing.

April 8, 2021 0 comment
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Course ChoiceCourtsEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceFeaturedNewsParental ChoicePrivate SchoolsReligious EducationSchool Choice

‘Friends of the Court’ urge hearing of Maine school choice case

Patrick R. Gibbons March 31, 2021
Patrick R. Gibbons

PHOTO: Institute for Justice

The Institute for Justice appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in March, asking the justices to hear the case of three Maine families wishing to send their children to private religious schools.

The issue to decide: Can the state’s school choice program discriminate against private religious schools based on what they teach?

Maine’s town tuition program, created in 1873, requires towns without public schools to send local children to other public school districts or pay for private school tuition. However, Maine’s program prohibits towns from paying tuition at private religious schools.

The plaintiffs in the case, Carson, Gillis and Nelson v. Hasson, argue Maine’s law violates the U.S. Constitution and the recent Espinoza decision. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, rejected that argument last year.

Under Espinoza, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could not prohibit religious schools from participating in publicly funded programs due to their religious status.

Maine’s law requires participating private schools to be “nonsectarian.” The state courts and 1st U.S. District Court of Appeals argue this does not violate Espinoza.

The state’s law under § 2951(2) simply states that the school must be “a nonsectarian school in accordance with the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

Exactly how the First Amendment defines nonsectarians schools is not clear, but the state of Maine comes up with a rather clever way to defend its discrimination: “While affiliation or association with a church or religious institution is one potential indicator of a sectarian school, it is not dispositive. The Department’s focus is on what the school teaches through its curriculum and related activities, and how the material is presented,” the state’s department of education claimed.

According to the state, prohibiting religious instruction does not violate the U.S. Constitution or the recent Espinoza decision because they are discriminating against religious uses, not religious status.

The 1st U.S, Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, arguing that Maine’s requirement of “nonsectarian” schools is not a prohibition on the religious status of a school, but a prohibition on religious uses.

Under this interpretation, a religious school could participate in Maine’s town tuition program so long as it didn’t teach religious things.

“The state flatly bans parents from choosing schools that offer religious instruction. That is unconstitutional,” says IJ senior attorney Michael Bindas.

Several groups, including a coalition of 18 states, filed amicus briefs urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. 

March 31, 2021 0 comment
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Education and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation LegislationEducation Savings AccountsFeaturedNewsParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool ChoiceTax Credit Scholarships

School choice gaining momentum in legislative chambers

Patrick R. Gibbons March 31, 2021
Patrick R. Gibbons

Kentucky became the 28th state to create a private school choice scholarship program despite protests mounted by teacher unions, whose members rallied Monday at the state Capitol.

The 2021 legislative session began with dozens of school choice bills filed nationwide amidst a global pandemic and recalcitrant teacher unions that continue to fight school openings.

Twenty-six states, plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, boasted private school choice scholarship programs at the start of the year. Now there are 28.

West Virginia became the 27thth state with a private school choice program when Gov. Jim Justice signed the bill into law Monday. Just hours later, Kentucky became the 28th after its General Assembly overrode a veto by Gov. Andy Beshear.

West Virginia’s program creates an education savings account program for students wishing to attend private schools or participate in home education. The program has no cap and offers scholarships worth $4,600.

Students can use the funds to pay for private school tuition, private tutoring, after school programs and more.

Unlike other education savings account programs which are limited to low-income students or students with special needs, West Virginia’s program is more universal.

“Arguably, you could say, even at launch, it’s the most expansive,” University of Arkansas professor Patrick Wolf said in an interview with the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

Kentucky’s program creates a $25 million tax credit scholarship program to pay for private school tuition for low-income students living in one of the state’s three largest school districts. Low-income students in all other counties with 90,000 or more residents would be eligible to receive funds to pay for private tutoring or other educational expenses.

House Bill 563, the bill creating the program, also allows students to switch to public schools in other school districts.

Beshear vetoed the bill last week, claiming the program “will harm public schools,” while blaming the Republican controlled legislature for “fail[ing] to invest in Kentucky’s public schools.”

Kentucky’s House of Representatives on Monday voted 51-42, and the Senate voted 23-14, to override the governor’s veto.

John Schilling, president of the American Federation for Children, hailed Kentucky lawmakers for the override.

 “Today lawmakers in Kentucky did the right thing by rejecting a veto by their governor that would have denied thousands of children in the Bluegrass State access to an educational environment that best serves their needs,” Schilling said. “We applaud members of the Kentucky Legislature who stood up and fought on behalf of children and families.”

 Kentucky spends $11,404 per pupil according to U.S. Department of Education data. In total, the $25 million scholarship program is a rounding error compared to the state’s $8 billion K-12 education budget.  

The governor also claimed the scholarship program violates the state’s “Blaine amendment” prohibiting instruction at sectarian schools, despite a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling to the contrary.

March 31, 2021 0 comment
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AnalysisCourse ChoiceCustomizationDemographic ResearchEducation ChoiceFeaturedNewsParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsPublic School ChoiceSchool Choice

New government report shows ongoing increase in Florida families participating in education choice

Patrick R. Gibbons February 19, 2021
Patrick R. Gibbons

A research arm of the Florida Legislature on Wednesday presented to the state’s Appropriations Subcommittee on Education a detailed 132-page report showing how Florida families are participating in education choice programs.

The report from the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) expands upon the one-page summary produced for the past 12 years by Step Up For Students, the state-approved nonprofit funding organization that helps administer five scholarships for Florida schoolchildren.

OPPAGA reviewed 21 school choice programs, providing detailed descriptions of each program including the number and percentage of students participating. The report provides a county-by-county breakdown of students enrolled in choice programs throughout the state and provides demographic data for most of the choice programs.

According to OPPAGA, 86% of students attend public schools, 11% attend private schools, and 3% are educated at home. Of those public school students, 12% are enrolled in public charter schools.

Overall, 46% of all Florida K-12 students participated in a school choice option. Of the students exercising choice, 69% exercised a public school choice option.

Florida’s public schools, including choice schools, enroll nearly 2.8 million students. Public schools have “grown incrementally” according to the authors, increasing by about 62,000, or 2.2%, over the last five years. Of public school students, 63% are nonwhite; 55% are eligible for free or reduced-price meals; 14% are students with disabilities; and 10% are English language learners.

Charter schools grew 22%, with enrollment growing by more than 58,000 students over the last five years. Of charter school students, 70% are nonwhite; 43% are eligible for free or reduced-price meals; 10% are students with disabilities; and 10% are English language learners.

Home education grew the fastest of the three education sectors, increasing by 27% over the last five years by adding nearly 23,000 students.

Meanwhile, private school enrollment increased by about 52,000 students, or nearly 18% over the last five years. Private schools overall are 50% nonwhite.

Fifty-six percent of students who participate in the Family Empowerment Scholarship program for low-income and working-class families are nonwhite. Forty-seven percent of special needs students who participate in the Gardiner Scholarship program and 55% who participate in the McKay Scholarship program are nonwhite.

The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, which serves low-income students, is Florida’s largest private K-12 scholarship program. That scholarship enrolled 113,120 students, up 41% over the last five years. About 73% of these scholarship students are nonwhite.

The public-school program enrolling the highest percentage of minorities is Jeb Bush’s Opportunity Scholarship program, with 74% of students being nonwhite. The Opportunity Scholarship allows students in the lowest performing public schools to enroll in higher performing public schools. Prior to being struck down by the Florida Supreme Court in 2006, that program provided scholarships for students to attend private schools as well. At the time, 86% of the students were nonwhite.

The program with the fewest minorities is Florida Virtual School, with 42% of its students being nonwhite. FLVS is also one of the few choice programs that have been shrinking, with enrollment declining by 9% over the last five years.

Among the other interesting findings, OPPA noted that:

·       Charter schools are the most popular alternative public school enrolling 323,385 students

·       Specialized public school programs were the second most popular option with 208,644 students enrolled in magnet schools; 185,699 students enrolled in career and professional academies; and 178,162 students enrolled in admission selective programs for gifted children.

·       Accelerated programs such as Advanced Placement, Dual Enrollment, Advanced International Certificate Education and International Baccalaureate have grown to a combined 366,101 students, up 22% from 300,224 students just five years ago.

·       Miami-Dade County Public Schools has three times as many students attending magnet schools as the next highest county, Orange.

February 19, 2021 0 comment
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Commentary and OpinionEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation LegislationFeaturedFlorida Tax Credit ScholarshipParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool ChoiceTax Credit Scholarships

If you’re going to evade a court ruling, why not do it with some style?

Patrick R. Gibbons February 4, 2021
Patrick R. Gibbons

“Jeb!” Doc screams, leaping from the time machine. “You’ve got to come back with me!”

“Where?!”

“Back to the Future!” Doc replies as he scrambles through Jeb’s trash. “It’s the kids Jeb, something has got to be done about the kids!”

After completing a hovercar retrofit to his DeLorean in 2015, Doc travels back to 2006 for what he thought would be a relaxing Florida vacation. Instead, he discovers a surprise Florida Supreme Court decision that overturned his friend’s 1999 voucher program, the Opportunity Scholarship.

Having explained the future to Jeb, they would travel  to 2001 to create a new scholarship program to evade the flawed but inevitable 2006 ruling.

Of course, this is nonsense, but many school choice opponents make a very similar argument.

But the ruling didn’t kill vouchers,” Frank Cerabino wrote of the 2006 Supreme Court cases in a Palm Beach Post column.  “It just made voucher entrepreneurs more crafty and meant that the public dollars being siphoned to private — and often religious — schools would have to be managed with the same bit of clever opacity that drug dealers employ when laundering their riches.”

Somehow, a 2006 Florida Supreme Court ruling caused “voucher entrepreneurs” to get “more crafty” when they created the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship back in 2001.

Florida’s collective memory on Bush v. Holmes apparently has been lost. Here’s what actually happened.

Bush v. Holmes, a widely panned ruling, was decided on Jan. 5, 2006. The ruling struck down the Opportunity Scholarship, a private school voucher that served 734 students, 86% of whom were Black or Hispanic.

The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, which was known as the Florida Corporate Income Tax Scholarship at the time, was pre-filed by the Florida House of Representatives on Nov. 11, 2000. Gov. Jeb Bush signed it into law on June 13, 2001.

Not only was the program created years before the Florida Supreme Court ruling, but the program was debated and passed at a time when it was 100% constitutional!

In fact, school choice opponents actually were losing in court.

On Oct. 3, 2000 (more than a month before the scholarship was pre-filed with the House), the Florida Court of Appeal overturned Judge Smith’s lower court ruling. In a unanimous decision, the justices declared, “Article IX does not unalterably hitch the requirement to make adequate provision for education to a single, specified engine, that being the public school system.”

This was a rejection of the future Supreme Court’s 2006 ruling that the state’s paramount duty to public education meant the Legislature could provide no alternatives.

Best of all, the Florida Supreme Court actually agreed.

On April 24, 2001, by a 4-1 decision, it declined to hear the case and allowed the Court of Appeal ruling to stand. That was 13 days before the Florida Legislature passed the bill and 48 days before Jeb Bush signed it into law.

Ironically, Justices Pariente, Wells, Anstead and Lewis were the majority in 2001. Five years later, they’d make a surprise reversal by declaring the program unconstitutional on the very same constitutional issues they rejected years before.

Yes, you read that right.

The very constitutional issues that overturned the Opportunity Scholarship in 2006 were not even in play when the new scholarship was created because the courts had tossed those arguments out.

Maybe Jeb knew this would happen because the Doc’s mindreading machine actually worked.

But that’s a conspiracy for another day.

February 4, 2021 0 comment
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AnalysisCharter SchoolsCustomizationDemographic ResearchEducation ChoiceFeaturedFlorida Tax Credit ScholarshipGardiner ScholarshipHomeschoolingParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsPublic School ChoiceSchool Choice

Once again, charter schools dominate Florida’s education choice landscape

Patrick R. Gibbons January 27, 2021
Patrick R. Gibbons

The 11th National School Choice Week celebration kicked off Monday as various organizations, schools, parents and students celebrate educational opportunities in their own unique way. RedefinED celebrates School Choice Week by releasing its 12th annual Florida Changing Landscapes document.

This most recent document, created from Florida Department of Education data, reveals that more than 1.5 million K-12 Florida students participated in school choice during the 2019-20 school year.

This year’s Changing Landscape is a little different than past years.  Last year, we saw nearly 1.7 million PK-12 students participating in some form of school choice in the Sunshine State. A detailed breakdown of Florida’s VPK program enrollment, the state’s largest voucher program with around 171,000 students, wasn’t available at the time of publication.

This year, we examined only K-12 school choice programs. Where applicable, such as with private school-private pay or the Gardiner Scholarship, pre-K students have been removed from the count.  Likewise, Gardiner Scholarship students who are enrolled in home education programs have been removed from the home education count.

As was the case last year, charter schools dominate the top spot with 329,216 students enrolled. Various public school options, such as magnet schools, career and professional academies and open enrollment continue to dominate the landscape. School choice programs offered by public school districts enrolled more than 717,000 students last year, which means there are more students enrolled in public school choice programs than there are public school students in 24 other states.

Overall, growth in school choice was modest in the 2019-20 school year, adding just 25,000 students for 0.9% growth over the prior year.

The Gardiner Scholarship program, administered by Step Up for Students, the nonprofit that hosts this blog, grew by 17%. Virtual education grew by 15% and Advanced International Certificate of Education programs grew by 14%.

Home education proved to be another popular option, exceeding 101,000 students, a growth of nearly 11% over the prior year. 

Career and Professional Academies and Choice and Magnet Programs saw enrollment decline by 6% and 5%, respectively. Private pay students attending private schools shrunk by 3.5%. But thanks in large measure to Florida’s scholarship programs, total K-12 enrollment in Florida’s private schools grew by 5%.

The 2019-20 school year ended amidst a global pandemic that shook public education well into the new year. Nationally, both charter school and private school enrollment grew by 3% while home education grew by 2%.

You can view last year’s Florida Changing Landscapes document here.

January 27, 2021 1 comment
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AnalysisEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceFeaturedSchool Choice

Three books critical of education choice, as well as book review, miss the mark

Patrick R. Gibbons January 26, 2021
Patrick R. Gibbons

Education historian turned education activist Diane Ravitch critiques three recent books on education choice, but her review, as well as the thought line of the books themselves, contains fatal flaws.

Can public education survive against so-called “free market fundamentalists, religious zealots, and others” who hate the idea of public education and want to replace it with “privately managed charter schools, vouchers, tuition tax credits, online learning, home schooling, and for-profit schooling”?

Diane Ravitch, research professor of education at New York University, ponders this question in her recent New York Review of Books examination of three books critical of education choice. But her question, not to mention the review itself, misses the mark, in part because the three authors she reviews substitute “public education” (i.e., taxpayer funded education) for public schools (government owned and operated schools).

Derek Black, author of “Schoolhouse Burning: Public Education and the Assault on American Democracy,” conflates school choice supporters with segregationists as “opponents of democracy,” even when these groups are at odds or when segregationists used democratic means to achieve their ends.

Katherine Stewart, author of “The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism,” conflates all sorts of thinkers as part of a monolithic opposition to public schools while misquoting sources.

And Steven Suitts, author of “Overturning Brown: The Segregationist Legacy of the Modern School Choice Movement,” conflates private school attendance during the 1950s-70s with racist motives.

If the authors are making more complex arguments, Ravitch doesn’t demonstrate it.

Black has argued that following the Civil War “public education corrected the flaws in our democracy.” Citing Black’s book, Ravitch notes that Louisiana’s Constitution of 1868 required all students to have access to free education, regardless of race, and that no school should be established exclusively for any race.

This, we are made to believe, was all undone by “opponents of democracy” who imposed Jim Crow laws and segregated education.

Not only was this not public education fixing flaws in democracy; racial integration wasn’t even achieved democratically in 1868. That was done by the Fifth Military District and Gen. Philip Sheridan. Sheridan had the power to remove democratically elected leaders and replace them with favored political appointees who were loyal to the Union and committed to the cause of racial integration and legal equality.

Louisiana wasn’t the only state that required free schools for Black students following the war. Florida did as well, and like Louisiana, quickly abolished any pretense of equality shortly after democracy was restored.

Louisiana replaced its constitution in 1879, and by 1885, Florida had done the same, cementing racial segregation in law for another 83 years. The state’s first democratically elected superintendent of public instruction spent his career trying to shut down a racially integrated private school and prevent white teachers from educating Black students.

To argue that public education, or even public schooling, is a cornerstone of democracy, there needs to be an acknowledgement that democracy brought about racial segregation. It was non-democratic means, a massive Civil War, and later the U.S. Supreme Court that began the slow march toward equality in education.

Here it seems almost as if Ravitch, and perhaps Black, Suitts and Stewart, are unaware or unwilling to acknowledge that public school advocates could also be staunch segregationists.

Historian Phil Magness noted that public school lawyer and advocate John Battle Jr. opposed school vouchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, on the grounds that it would weaken the district’s ability to resist racial integration. Battle found other pro-segregation allies to oppose school vouchers, including the all-white Virginia Education Association.

Racists and segregationists, such as Gov. Walter Pierce of Oregon and William N. Sheats, recognized as the father of Florida’s public school system, have supported public schools and opposed private ones.

Stewart unearths quotes from obscure villains to argue opposition to public schools is rooted in racism Christian and free market fundamentalists. But this strategy ignores the real and complicated debate about public education and school choice.

Public schools have been supported by “free market fundamentalists” such as Richard Cobden and even the father of capitalism himself, Adam Smith. And they’ve been opposed by thoughtful thinkers such as the scientist who discovered oxygen, Joseph Priestley, as well as New York statesman and abolitionist Garrit Smith.

The father of the modern voucher movement, Milton Friedman, was an agnostic who found racism and segregation to be morally repugnant.

Ravitch’s book review venerates public school advocates as saints defending the education of children fighting racism and saving democracy. The reality is that there have been heroes and villains on both sides, and it’s not clear these books take seriously the rich and complex history of American education and school choice.

In the end, Ravitch remains convinced that most parents remain loyal to their public school despite 47 states offering voucher, tax credit or charter school programs.

Indeed, many parents are satisfied. But that doesn’t justify her opposition to giving all parents, especially those in underserved communities, the same choices she had.

January 26, 2021 0 comment
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AnalysisCoronavirus / COVID-19Demographic ResearchEducation PollingFeaturedPrivate SchoolsSchool Choice

Private school families more satisfied with schools during pandemic, survey finds

Patrick R. Gibbons January 21, 2021
Patrick R. Gibbons

Nearly a year after the COVID-19 pandemic began and reshaped the nation’s education system, parents of private and charter school students are more likely to be satisfied with their schools and less likely to report a negative effect on learning than their public school counterparts. That’s a key finding in the latest survey from Education Next.

The survey was conducted by Michael B. Henderson of the University of Louisiana, and Martin West and Paul E. Peterson, both of Harvard University. The researchers surveyed 2,155 American parents with children in grades K-12 in December, examining parental satisfaction as well as the impacts of remote and hybrid learning on students since the pandemic started.

As with the last survey in September, parents expressed general satisfaction even as their children are learning less. Private school students continue to be more likely to receive in-person instruction, where parents are more likely to report lower levels of learning loss and lower negative impacts on the student’s social, emotional and physical well-being. Overall, parents are generally satisfied with schools (71% district, 73% charter and 83% private). Private school parents are more likely to be very satisfied – 55% – compared to 35% for charter parents and 25% of district parents.

Just 18% of private school parents reported their children were learning remotely, compared to more than half for district and charter school students.

Despite this broad satisfaction across sectors, 60% believe their children are learning less than they did before. In-person learning was closely related to higher reported satisfaction and lower reported learning losses.

A small difference exists between sectors regarding impacts on “student’s academic knowledge,” with 38% of district parents reporting negative impacts to 30% of private school parents. A similar 8-point difference was observed for parents reporting negative effects on their child’s emotional well-being.

Parents do report significantly higher negative impacts on their child’s social relationships and physical fitness at district and charter schools compared to private ones.

Private schools offering remote learning do lag behind their counterparts for teachers meeting with the entire class, but there’s little difference on one-on-one teacher student meetings. Remote private schools also lag behind on weekly homework assignments (84% of parents report weekly assignments) compared to district schools (93% of parents report weekly assignments).

The survey also makes several interesting observations.

While district enrollment fell 9 percentage points between the Spring and Fall of 2020, researchers found it had little to do with the school districts’ response to the Covid pandemic.

Just 10% of new private school students and 14% of new charter school students switched due to dissatisfaction with their prior school’s response to Covid. However, among new home school parents, 61% were dissatisfied with their prior school’s response to Covid.

Meanwhile, 32% of private school parents and 19% of charter parents were dissatisfied with their prior school in some way. Parents were more likely to switch schools because of moving or because their prior school no longer offered the child’s grade level.

Covid safety appears to be roughly similar across sectors. While private school students are far more likely to attend school in person, parents across all sectors report incidents of Covid infections at roughly the same rate. Parents also equally report their school sector is doing “about the right amount,” when it comes to Covid safety measures.

Another discovery was the rate at which parents utilized in-person learning when compared to local Covid infection rates. Counties in highest quartile of infection rates offered more in-person learning options than counties with the lowest options.

Despite noting this “perverse result,” researchers also state that the observed result does “not constitute evidence that greater use of in-person learning contributed to the spread of the virus across the United States.”

Despite children learning less, parents are generally satisfied across all school sectors.

January 21, 2021 0 comment
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