Tim Slekar, dean of education at Edgewood College in Wisconsin, recognizes that the Néw York opt out has national implications.
He links to a dismissive editorial in the Néw York Daily News that characterizes opt out as union-led, which is ridiculous. Parents don’t work for the union and don’t take orders from the union.
He writes:
“It’s fills me with such warmth to watch the media try with all its might to prop up an invalid, unreliable, and politically driven system to divert tax dollars to private companies and charter schools.
“Opt out was never and will never be an anti-testing movement. It is the ultimate reality check and newest form of civil disobedience.
“People are now opting out in large numbers because they finally understand that the results are scientifically invalid.
“Simply, the tests don’t tell us how children our doing and don’t hold anybody accountable. 25 years of testing and not a single budge in the achievement gap. 25 years of accountability and 1 trillion dollars redirected towards ACCOUNTABILITY and all we have to show for it is soaring profits for test making companies, test prep companies and data companies.
“Sorry but its over. This was never about helping our neediest children. It was always about destroying the public system, blaming teachers and then selling off our schools to the highest bidders.”
Let me add a personal note about Tim. Five years ago, he urged me to endorse opting out, and I declined. I did not want to urge anyone to break the law. Over time, I have come to realize that Tim was right. Opting out is the only way that parents have to tell legislators to stop demonizing our public schools and our teachers. Doing so requires civil disobedience. We can take action. We will be heard. Our numbers will grow until politicians stop using test scores to harm children and privatize public schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Does the Opt Out site offer suggestions for children and/or parents to deal with administrators who apply bully tactics?
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Call the bully hotline number on the posters that are so prevalent in any public school these days.
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LOL
We need a script with an empty space to fill in names. For instance, Bill Gates,Arne Duncan, Governor Cuomo, etc., etc., etc.
And then we drum up support to send thousands of these to those Bully hotlines.
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“I refuse the tests because the union told me to,” said no parent ever!
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Exactly! I’m a parent who is trying to get teachers to speak up in my school district!
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Most teachers in districts run by supporters of corporate education reform fear for their jobs and the few who have the courage to speak up will probably be cut off at the knees because there are not enough of them to present a united front.
The only thing to fear is fear itself. When we fear bullies, that encourages them to bully more.
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What are you trying to get the teachers to say?
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I’m ALSO trying to get my teachers to speak out against these tests. But, it’s easy for me to say that when it isn’t MY career that is on the line.
So, I understand their reluctance to be “the nail that sticks out” because that nail “is the first one to get the hammer”.
Privately, many teachers at my child’s elementary school have told me that they agree that these tests are a sham and that they are ultimately designed to blame teachers, and end our system of public education.
However, we parents MUST carry the ball here. And I’m carrying the ball ON MY OWN. If anythign, I’ve also had two teachers tell me that I’m completely wrong to oppose the CCSS tests.
What am I “trying to get the teachers to say?”
Well, in an ideal world, to take the time to REALLY understand what these tests and the people promoting them are all about.
And then to tell all of their students and their parents why they should consider opting out of them.
And, if EVERY SINGLE TEACHER REFUSED to give these exams, and it their union stood behind them, it would also educate the public and help them understand WHY these tests are so destructive, so odious, so fraudulent. And why the political sellouts backing them need to be thrown out of office on their derrieres.
That’s what I want teachers to do: Educate themselves. Educate parents. Educate students. And then ALL OF THEM…unite and refuse to give them, in the best interests of everyone Parents, Teachers, Students, Taxpayers, Principals.
Who will such an action hurt? The RIGHT people; the ones who deserve the “hurt” of less money, less power, less control.
I think the billions they’ve already accumulated at the expense of other people should be enough to see them through.
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Union-led? So that makes the Opt-oOut movement less relevant? If unions had the kind of power or juice the editorial proclaims then we wouldn’t be in the mess we are currently in. Personally, I’m waiting for something like this to get the pols attention.
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Curious, anyone have a child that wanted to take the test but you as a parent opted him or her out anyway?
Also, trying to understand parents who are against testing but have children taking the tests.
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“What’s new is the arrival, thanks to Gov. Cuomo, of a teacher evaluation system that might begin to distinguish between the best instructors and the worst, in part by using student test-score gains.”
That’s just untrue in the national context. States like Ohio and Florida are (finally) looking into how much they are testing and it even penetrated the US Congress. In fact, NYC teachers testified at the Senate hearings.
Ed reformers are going to have stop blaming everything in the world on labor unions.
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The endless testing approach has been in place for over a decade. If things are getting worse blame the mess on the illogical reform agenda. Cuomo and Tisch thoroughly own the mess that is NY education. They are trying like hell to make everyone believe otherwise–and falling flat on their face!
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Also, weren’t the big, contentious public meetings on Common Core prior to Cuomo’s teacher ranking scheme announcement?
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You hit the nail on the head here. Rather than show some humility and admit they were wrong, Tisch and Cuomo have doubled-down in their ultimate show of arrogance.
Stay the course, expose the frauds. There are few things that sociopaths fear, but exposure is the one thing sociopaths fear. Not saying that those two are sociopaths, but I’m not saying they’re not either. 😉
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Reblogged this on donotmalignme and commented:
It’s not just about the tests
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I have one word for Dean Slekar at this historic moment:
Whoo-hoo!!!
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WHOOO HOOOO Indeed
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I think we get to add a pair of “O”s to WHOOO-HOOO every time opt-out numbers jump an order of magnitude!
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Jeff, maybe Dean can share a cell with Sheldon Silver
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Here’s a question. I’ve read a lot of articles suggesting that teachers who did not have 16 students take the test may be evaluated on the local measure. My district had a high opt-out rate, but my class only had one opt-out. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I didn’t drill the kids constantly, or because I tried to allay their anxiety about the test. Either way, many teachers may be scored with the local, more accurate measure, while I am evaluated on a test designed for failure? That would be penalizing the teachers who met the participation rate. I guess next year I should make sure the kids are wetting their pants in fear of the test.
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GAGAer through and through, eh Jen!!
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Jen, you’ve hit on exactly the point: no matter what system you create, at the end of the day it can’t supplant professional judgment, because there will ALWAYS be perverse unintended consequences.
How many of us want insurance companies to create an accountability system for doctors that removes their ability to interpret medical test results and generates mandatory courses of treatment they are forced to enact against their professional judgment? That’s what we’ve done in education. Teachers should assess children, colleagues and principals should assess teachers, and the state should not force mandatory consequences on anyone based on the radically inadequate systems we have put in place to judge them.
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“Five years ago, he urged me to endorse opting out, and I declined. I did not want to urge anyone to break the law.”
Aha, so you admit that it IS against the law to opt out! (Just kidding, I couldn’t resist.)
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FLERP, it seemed that way to me five years ago. Now I see it as necessary civil disobedience. Remember, laws were broken by the civil rights movement on behalf of justice. When the law requires you to do what is wrong for children and undermines education, then it must be broken until the lawmakers change it.
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Yes, Diane, it’s continually evaluating any and all new information in our lives and adapting and adjusting to those ever changing realities that shows the mind of a true “free thinker” and not some dogmatic non thinker.
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I just completed opting out my son for this year. We left papers in his cumulative file several years ago to this effect. Our wishes were not being honored this year. I once more asserted that my son would not be taking the SBAC test. The district in Nevada gave me the run around and said I had to fill out a district packet and I had to speak to the district testing administrative head. Of course they had no form so I used one suggested by Angie Sullivan. They thought it was the official district form that does not actually exist (they are still developing it, after all, who would opt out when they claimed it wasn’t possible to opt out.) I have shared my form. The secretary at school said she wondered what the form looked like since she had not seen one. After a parent meeting of test objectors she will see 50 or so of them next week. We are done!
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Woot!
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An attorney and parent who is opting out gave me this form for Nevada.
April 14, 2015
Re: Criterion-Reference Test Opt Out form Clark County School District 2014-2015
Dear __________ and staff:
As the parents of ____________, current _________ grader, we respectfully and formally request and demand our child not to be administered any Nevada Criterion Reference Tests (CRT) in English/Language Arts and Mathematics, including but not limited to the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) examinations.
We understand our request may have negative consequences for my child’s school. These consequences include, but are not limited to, annual school accountability and decisions made regarding allocation of resources based on annual school performance ratings. However, we fully expect our child not be confronted negatively in any way with our decision to refuse testing on his behalf. More specifically, please direct any communications regarding this matter to US, his parents. _________ is not to be confronted directly on this subject unless one of his parents is present. Thank you for understanding!
Child’s name_________________________________________________
Grade Level_________
Parent Name___________________________________________________________ (Please Print)
Parent Name___________________________________________________________ (Please Print)
Parent Signature__________________________________________Date__________
Parent Signature__________________________________________Date__________
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What the F%#K! Are they not ashamed to perpetrate such a ‘shonda’
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Slaker goes into my file “LIES & THE LYING LIARS WHO TELL THEM!(my favorite book title and a book by Senator Al franked.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_and_the_Lying_Liars_Who_Tell_Them
and a review, and this was before Glen Beck and our current crop of mendacious politicos.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/oct/11/highereducation.news1
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First of all anyone who follows NYC Educator and ICE blogs knows that at every UFT Delegate meeting Mulgrew will not entertain any motion endorsing opt out. He even went so far to say parents want these tests.
Secondly this article proves what Diane has been saying for years…..but it will never be part of our government’s dialogue
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/overcoming-povertys-damage-to-learning/?smid=fb-share
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Tim Slekar.
How do you reconcile these two statements:
“Opt out was never and will never be an anti-testing movement. It is the ultimate reality check and newest form of civil disobedience.
“People are now opting out in large numbers because they finally understand that the results are scientifically invalid.”
Since the results are invalid (and it doesn’t make a difference whether they are “scientifically” verified, just ontologically and epistemologically invalid which they are as proven by Wilson) why wouldn’t opting out be an “anti-testing” movement (which I am supposing by anti-testing you mean anti standardized testing)?
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No teacher is opposed to assessment. But these tests are not the tests we took, that my own children took, or even similar to the tests of 2010. These tests are filled with product placement. These tests have purposely confusing answers. These tests are not used to drive or inform instruction.
Different tests are given in different schools. We know that. Since no one is allowed to see them ( per NYSED gag order) how do we KNOW that suburban districts aren’t given tests to inure their standing? How do we know that urban districts aren’t given tests to insure their receivership status and need for more charter schools?
These tests are designed for failure.
“Failure must be manipulated in order to see the cure.”
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Thanks auto correct 🙂
“Failure must be manipulated in order to SELL the cure.”
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yep
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Here’s the thing. Any input from teachers is considered invalid by people who could make changes. Why? Because teachers are primary stakeholders and therefore considered to be blindly biased, again, by the powers that be.
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Yes, but our stakes are children, the powers that be’s stakes is money.
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Dr. Slekar was my professor when I was an undergrad at SUNY Cortland. It is refreshing to see that he continues to be a voice of reason and awareness. His analysis of the Opt Out movement is spot on. Although each person may have different reasons to support the movement, those reasons have a common thread. Democracy is about people, not profits. Our goal should be to help others understand this notion, including our elected officials who have lost their way.
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Just so we’re clear: NYS and the USA are NOT democracies.
New Yorkers and Americans live in constitutional republics.
Said republics have constitutions which “guarantee” certain rights (quotes needed, b/c these same constitutions are ignored by arrogant politicians, case in point: US Constitution 10th Amendment giving the states rights, such as education, end-runned by NCLB, RTTT, CCSS).
The citizenry does NOT vote directly on the governing laws (democracy) but rather depends on elected officials (or in the case of NY, appointees like the regents or the ousted Commish King) to decide policy for them. Since money buys elections (Citizens United), the corporations are represented (Pearson) but not the citizenry.
There is a sad illusion of democracy in America, but US Citizens are living in a representative constitutional nightmare.
The system is gamed by the corporations and is rife to be gamed. So… GAME ON, CUOMO + TISCH! Coming back at ya!
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There are times when I wonder of there is any way to restore our democracy short of a new constitutional convention.
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A new constitutional convention might be exactly what the oligarchs want because then they would spend a lot of their wealth to gain control of the final product and revise the Constitution to favor them over the other 99.9% of the people.
I think that’s why the Founding Fathers made it so difficult to ratify new amendments.
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Now you are talking Lloyd. At OEN, we know this must happen before it is too late.
Bernie Sanders calls for this, all the time.
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Absolutely spot on.
Add to that the FACT that 84 people own more that the rest of humanity on this planet, and that the robber barons of today, have access to technology unheard of in the past, they are making fast work of shredding this republic’s Constitution.
Because eduction is a complex profession, and learning by the human brain is complex, the people need an interpreter… ash they do when the doctor prescribes expensive tests and medicines.
Unfortunately the pundits who explain this subject, talk about ‘teaching’ no learning which is the wrong conversation, and is mean to subvert the conversation. I wrote about this a DECADE ago, with an example of how easily it is done.
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/08/subverting-the-national-conversation-a.html
A DECADE ago I wrote about the Constitutional Scandal THAT I EXPERIENCED IN 1998 on my blog. It is not a good link , so I posted it here http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
Today, sixteen years after it happened to me, I met a NYC teacher in the gym, who is recovering from the decade long assault on her sanity, to make her retire. She speaks as if she is the only one, because like every teacher who is mowed down by Broad, Gates, Koch Walton and friends, she is unaware of the same tactics a play in the 15,880 other school systems in 50 states.
They win because of this and the fact that these very men own the median, and thus, have turned the National Conversation to TEACHING instead of Learning, and how to enable it…which is well knows, researched an available…just not from Duncan and clones.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Learning-not-Teacher-evalu-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-111001-956.html
When you know how long ago I wrote that, and then realize that the NCLB is still in operation, and the NY State Mayor openly says that it should count for 505 of a teacher’s evaluation, even as 75% of his state’s parents opted their kids OUT —then you can appreciate the irony and the CORRUPTION that has ended the America we knew.
You should go to my old site, and read The Insane War on Teachers, too.
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/The_Insane_War_on_Teachers_and_Democracy.html or No Rules or Regulations, which I wore in 2004.
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/No_Rules_or_Regulations.html
The robber barons own the land, and the first order of business is to end the sharing of knowledge upon which democracy depends
Click to access hirsch.pdf
and to end public education
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Five years ago I wouldn’t have supported opt out either. Write letters, speak out in meetings, participate in online forums, model good teaching practices! Unfortunately that didn’t work and the system is in shambles. Parents can see through the lies, and they are insisting on a system that does not set up their children for failure. I now support civil disobedience: OPT OUT!
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Ighiggins commented here.”Five years ago I wouldn’t have supported opt out either. Write letters, speak out in meetings, participate in online forums, model good teaching practices! Unfortunately that didn’t work and the system is in shambles. Parents can see through the lies, and they are insisting on a system that does not set up their children for failure. I now support civil disobedience: OPT OUT!”
I read HER COMMENT after I had sent a letter to Diane examining the possibilities if parents join with us. So, I am copying here the relevant thoughts that I had about what parents can and can’t do, and what is possible TOGETHER!
My response was to The NY Times promo which said that: “painted as obstacles to improving schools, the UNIONS now find common ground with parents who object to testing and conservatives who oppose the Common Core.”
The Unions? They mean teachers. The union is just waking up to what parents are prepared to do…we teachers have always worked hand and hand with parents to educate their children… THAT IS WHAT IS MISSING?
Hmmmm…. :Common grounds” with parents… Ya think?
Could that commonality not be the children?
Does that not tell us something, Diane?
I say that If we areNOT TO LEAVE ALL CHILDREN BEHIND the rest of the world, parents and teachers MUST Persist and INSIST on telling the truth– IN ONE VOICE– If we succeed we might EVEN return authentic teaching to the classroom, and bring back the professional teacher!
DARE WE DREAM?
Parents and teachers need to be VERY, VERY CLEAR to the media, that things are going to change as to how their tax dollars are spent.
I for one, have absolutely no trouble in identifying others who ACTUALLY DO HAVE the welfare of children as a guiding principle in their lives!
The corollary to this — is that I have little trouble identifying those who not only do not consider benefits to children, but are so callous and so shamefully greedy that they willingly hurt children by their actions
… and they know it!
WHY else would they introduce a testing program that does exactly that –hurt children– and now they wish to EXPAND it to kindergarten?
HOW CAN THEY IN CLEAR CONSCIENCE DO THAT when these test fails to do what the are touted to do, and actually rob teachers of LEARNING time….the practice time kids need to pick up critical thinking skills as well as academic and literacy skills. SKILL ARE ONLY ACQUIRED THROUGH PRACTICE. They stole our practice time with their tests. GIVE IT BACK, we must say… Let the teacher teach, or as I prefer “let the teacher facilitate learning!!
Together, parents and teachers CAN change the conversation to: ” WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE, and how (IN WHAT WAYS) to FACILITATE and ENABLE it. I clearly remember those words, —a part of the seminars for the real National Standards…for which I was a cohort BTW! http://www.opednews.com/author/quicklinks/author40790.html
Yes, parents and teacher RECOGNIZE each other as being on the SAME PAGE, but in addition, mothers, fathers and teachers are not bamboozled by those who do not have the welfare of children in mind — we spot them…
http://www.opednews.com/articles/BAMBOOZLE-THEM-where-tea-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-110524-511.html
What real teacher has not worked with parents whenever possible? As the grunt on the line for 40 years, who has faced thousands of emergent learners, not merely ‘kids.’ I have worked with parents. I know they love great teachers. Trust me on the love part.
FYI: The parents went nuts when I disappeared!
Here is the POINT, as IGHIGGINS pointed out on this blog…it aint easy!!!:
The parents did not prevail in my case, either but it was 1998, and I lost! Letters poured into the DOE from the lawyers and professionals on the east and west side, whose childrens’ siblings were waiting to be in my class, and from parents across the city who had applied and been granted a seat in my seventh grade.
NOTHING MATTERED, but THAT WAS THEN and This is NOW! I was blindsided but teachers thanks to this site– KNOW their rights!
Back then, there were no teachers standing with me…. it was 1998, and no one knew what was afoot– this civil rights process… of silencing the teachers with threats , harassment and intimidation. Parents and teachers came up against a CONSPIRACY SO LAWLESS that one superintendent actually found ME guilty of a crime, IN ABSENTIA SO TOTAL THAT SHE NEVER put out charges OR informed me of allegations, or investigated, or held a hearing! Nothing has stopped her in the past from breaking the law. Times they are a changing!
How do parents fight THAT kind of shameless behavior?
Another good question, which Dan Rather actually asked ME way back then: “Where was the union?”
My question, however, remains : at what point does the shame kick in?
Personally, I believe that these billionaires have no moral compass, and ending public schools for the children of the workers, is part of their plan for the global economy… great article in “The Atlantic Magazine”, on why people are not uniting.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/why-workers-wont-unite/386228/
The billionaires club , is at this moment, creating this global economy– and their plans are not necessarily beneficial to us. They wish to create a servile class, too poor to think beyond food and rent!
These oligarchs destroyed public service jobs with their austerity, and starved the schools to boot, impoverishing the middle class fast.
The parents know this too, and they are ready to listen to US…and we have plenty to tell them about what it takes to teach (WITTT will be a section in my new.Blog, “Speaking As A Teacher” but here is my old site and my blog “Observable Reality”—which I wrote a decade ago when I discovered that MY story was THE way it was being done EVERYWHERE!
Now parents, are seeing the destruction wrought by listening to liars and charlatans who offer magic elixirs, like standardized tests and iPads, and they are ready to listen to those of us who have the experience and who can SPEAK AS A TEACHER must, about how THEIR children can learn.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
SO in my opinion … we have to ACTIVATE & MOTIVATE that base of dedicated parents who will FIGHT FOR WHAT IS RIGHT and NECESSARY. WE NEED TO keep PARENTS tuned in, and working WITH teachers… and even the union will take notice!.
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