Big Education Ape

Monday, November 28, 2011

Students lose individual attention as class sizes swell across the metro area | OregonLive.com:Students lose individual attention as class sizes swell across the metro areaby Nicole Dungca, The OregonianHAPPY VALLEY -- After walking into Carl Sander's algebra class with a late pass in hand, Alex Gonzales, 13, found himself alone at a side table. It wasn't punishment. The Happy Valley Middle School classroom simply doesn't have enough desks for 47 students. In many school districts across Oregon, this year's classes ... more »

NYC Public School Parents: A message from Parents to Improve School Transportation: Relax about bus strike but not about safety

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NYC Public School Parents: A message from Parents to Improve School Transportation: Relax about bus strike but not about safety:A message from Parents to Improve School Transportation: Relax about bus strike but not about safetyby Leonie HaimsonPIST was an invited guest at the monthly membership meeting of school bus drivers’, escorts’, and mechanics’ Local 1181 ATU on November 22. This was clearly NOT a meeting to hold a strike vote. The president went over the union’s position on Employee Protection ... more »

Schools Matter: A Look at Finnish Schools and Teacher Preparation

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Schools Matter: A Look at Finnish Schools and Teacher Preparation:A Look at Finnish Schools and Teacher Preparationby Jim HornThe Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has an excellent piece on the Finnish system, including the video that you see below. As you watch the short video, listen for how the special education teacher in the poor Finnish school talks about the basic skills that all their children get--it's a very different conception of what is "basic" when compared to endless test-prep worksheets that non-privileged ... more »

Oklahoma Gazette News: Shaping social studies group that includes an influential nonacademic religious adviser

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Oklahoma Gazette News: Shaping social studies:Shaping social studiesCurriculum for an interdisciplinary field gets revised by a group that includes an influential nonacademic religious adviser.Clifton AdcockNovember 16th, 2011 The state Department of Education is beginning the process of formulating new curriculum for public social studies classes.Sixty-five individuals are tasked with reviewing and rewriting the curriculum. At least one name on the list has drawn fire in the past for controversial statements: David Barton, the founder of WallBuilders, a group that bills ... more »

INTERACTIVE: The Privatization of Education | The Nation

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INTERACTIVE: The Privatization of Education | The Nation:INTERACTIVE: The Privatization of EducationThe Nation November 17, 2011 Legislative changes to: Online coursework Charter schools Online schools Both charter schools and online schools Online coursework, charter schools and online schoolsFor years, privatizing education has been a hobby horse for conservatives of all stripes. But they met with little success until very recently. What accounts for the sudden change in fortune? As Lee Fang reports in this week's issue, under the banner of ... more »

Coordinated West Coast Port Shutdown « occupy california #ows

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Coordinated West Coast Port Shutdown « occupy california:Coordinated West Coast Port Shutdownby *CALIFORNIA, OREGON, WASHINGTON – A Coordinated US West Coast port shutdown for Monday, December 12th has been called for by the occupation movement in solidarity with longshoreman, particularly in Longview, WA. RSVP here.A Call from Occupy Oakland:Greetings and Solidarity from Occupy Oakland!We present this call to you because we believe it is time the occupation movement begins to work together to carry through coordinated, pinpointed actions. We want ... more »

Modern School: The Not So Shocking Truth About the Crackdown on Occupy Wall Street #ows

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Modern School: The Not So Shocking Truth About the Crackdown on Occupy Wall Street:The Not So Shocking Truth About the Crackdown on Occupy Wall Streetby Michael DunnImage from Flickr, Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.comNaomi Wolf’s expose on the federal role in the crackdown on the Occupy Wall Street movement, “The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy,” has been making the rounds in the liberal blogosphere, getting replayed here and here, for example. In her piece, Wolf calls the violent crackdown on ... more »

URGENT: Occupy LA Prepares for Eviction | OccupyWallSt.org #ows

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URGENT: Occupy LA Prepares for Eviction | OccupyWallSt.org:URGENT: Occupy LA Prepares for Evictionby OccupyWallStPopoutThe mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, has ordered Occupy LA to pack up and leave Solidarity Park (formerly City Hall Park) by 12:01AM tonight or face arrest. Villaraigosa – who initially claimed to support the Occupation and has lauded OWS for "awakening the country's conscience" – is now citing "public health and safety" as justification to evict the encampment, even as LA police chief Charlie Beck ... more »

Education Petition: Open Letter: Defend CA Public Education | Change.org #ows #edreform

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Education Petition: Open Letter: Defend CA Public Education | Change.org:Open Letter: Defend CA Public EducationWhy This Is ImportantThis Open Letter is an indispensable tool to reverse the attacks on public education in California. It gives the authorities an ultimatum: either cede to our demands or we will begin a massive wave of actions beginning on February 1, 2012.Please help us gather hundreds of thousands of signatures, including from all major labor, student, and community organizations, by forwarding this out widely. ... more »

Schools need to have a voice | EdNewsColorado

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Schools need to have a voice | EdNewsColorado:Schools need to have a voiceby Guest ColumnistEditor’s note: This article was submitted by teacher Mark Thorsen from Ponderosa High School in Douglas County.Our school now enters a critical period, and a recent conversation with a well-respected colleague helped to keep some of my angst in perspective. He mentioned that he felt like we were in a period of mourning; we were dealing with a loss. It is a process, and we enter ...more »

Looking for a few good mentors | Ideas and Thoughts

Big Education Ape - PostRank (PostRank: All) - 10 hours ago

Looking for a few good mentors | Ideas and Thoughts:Looking for a few good mentorsby Dean ShareskiFrom January to April I'll be teaching a course called ECMP 455. It's an advanced course on using technology in education. Whatever that means. Actually what it means is I want my students to dig deep into what teaching and learning looks like in 2012 as great teachers and great ideas come together to make learning better and richer and even transformative. I've taught ... more »

Fact Sheet: Multiple Measures: A Definition and Examples from the U.S. and Other Nations | FairTest

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Fact Sheet: Multiple Measures: A Definition and Examples from the U.S. and Other Nations | FairTest:Fact Sheet: Multiple Measures: A Definition and Examples from the U.S. and Other NationsSubmitted by fairtest on July 28, 2010 - 12:51pm fact sheets k-12 whats newMultiple Measures: A Definition and Examples from the U.S. and Other NationsSummaryDefinition. Multiple measures: the use of multiple indicators and sources of evidence of student learning, of varying kinds, gathered at multiple points in time, within and across subject ... more »

SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL: Little Evan Stone And Princess Sydney Morris Are Do-Gooders (Thank God!)

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SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL: Little Evan Stone And Princess Sydney Morris Are Do-Gooders (Thank God!):Little Evan Stone And Princess Sydney Morris Are Do-Gooders (Thank God!)by noreply@blogger.com (Bronx Teacher)Let's try this. Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat (sound of teletype)rat-tat-tat-tat....From the newsroom of Educators4Excllence, breaking news!!!!E4E, Little Evan Stone, and Princess Sydney Morris have been featured onthedogooder.com as a couple of gosh diddly darn do gooders! Yes, in an article entitled, "Educators 4 Excellence: An Independent Voice for Teachers" (notice the major typo when you ... more »

Schooling in the Ownership Society: For-profit teacher certification is booming

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Schooling in the Ownership Society: For-profit teacher certification is booming:For-profit teacher certification is boomingby Mike KlonskyThis, according to a Nov. 26 New York Times report.As you might expect, Texas leads the way in for-profit teacher certifications. More than 110 alternative certification programs — including iteachTexas, and nonprofits like Teach for America — produce 40 percent of all new teachers in Texas, according to an analysis of Texas Education Agency data by Ed Fuller, a Penn State University education professor and ... more »

Many Lenses, But Little Focus. « My Island View

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Many Lenses, But Little Focus. « My Island View:Many Lenses, But Little Focus.by tomwhitbyTo understand why certain decisions are made, we need to understand the decision maker and the pressures under which certain decisions are made. This is sometimes referred to as looking through the lens of the decision maker. It takes into view many of the factors pushing and pulling on an individual responsible for making a decision. Sometimes decisions of some magnitude may require a number of individuals ... more »

Truth Values: One Girl’s Romp Through M.I.T.’s Male Math Maze will be at the University of Washington | Seattle Education

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Truth Values: One Girl’s Romp Through M.I.T.’s Male Math Maze will be at the University of Washington | Seattle Education:Truth Values: One Girl’s Romp Through M.I.T.’s Male Math Maze will be at the University of Washingtonby seattleducation2011From the Truth Values website:Created as a response to former Harvard President Lawrence Summers’ now infamous suggestion that women are less represented than men in the sciences because of innate gender differences,Truth Values: One Girl’s Romp Through M.I.T.’s Male Math Maze is a true-life ... more »

Occupy Philly Facing Eviction TODAY | OccupyWallSt.org #ows

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Occupy Philly Facing Eviction TODAY | OccupyWallSt.org:Occupy Philly Facing Eviction TODAYby OccupyWallStOccupy Philadelphia has announced they are facing imminent eviction:[Mayor] Nutter has joined the chorus of Mayors nationwide to silence and render invisible this movement against Wall Street greed. The City told us to leave City Hall with all of our belongings by 5pm today. At 5pm let's show them how much support this movement has. Come to City Hall and stand with the 99%! Chances are police will not ... more »

NYT: Policy-Making Billionaires – Their policy is to make billions off our kids. Shut the school house gates on Gates. « Continuing Change

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NYT: Policy-Making Billionaires – Their policy is to make billions off our kids. Shut the school house gates on Gates. « Continuing Change:NYT: Policy-Making Billionaires – Their policy is to make billions off our kids. Shut the school house gates on Gates.by gatorbonbcPolicy Making Billionaires Boys Club making education their pet project.Wanna bet their policy is to make sure they make billions…

Is the Job of a Teacher 24/7 | Connected Principals

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Is the Job of a Teacher 24/7 | Connected Principals:Is the Job of a Teacher 24/7by Akevy GreenblattPicture from: nysut.orgI haven’t blogged for a while and have been thinking about what to blog about. I am jealous of all of those in my PLN that blog daily and sometimes more than once a day. After thinking about this for a while I decided to put my thoughts down on “paper”.Today we talk about child centered learning and the teacher as ... more »

Library group denounces book destruction at Occupy Wall Street - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post #ows

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Library group denounces book destruction at Occupy Wall Street - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post:Library group denounces book destruction at Occupy Wall Streetby Valerie StraussThe American Library Association has denounced the destruction of books at a library set up by Occupy Wall Street when New York police raided a park where protesters were staying earlier this month.The ALA, the oldest and largest library association in the world, issued a release that said some of its members who had ... more »

Shanker Blog » Smear Review

Shanker Blog » Smear Review:

Smear Review

by Matthew Di Carlo

A few weeks ago, the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) issued a review of the research on virtual learning. Several proponents of online education issued responses that didn’t offer much substance beyond pointing out NEPC’s funding sources. A similar reaction ensued after the release last year of the Gates Foundation’s preliminary report on the Measures of Effective Teaching Project. There were plenty of substantive critiques, but many of the reactions amounted to knee-jerk dismissals of the report based on pre-existing attitudes toward the foundation’s agenda.

More recently, we’ve even seen unbelievably puerile schemes in which political operatives actually pretend to represent legitimate organizations requesting consulting services. They record the phone calls, and post out-of-context snippets online to discredit the researchers.

Almost all of the people who partake in this behavior share at least one fundamental characteristic: They are

A Repertoire for the Imperfect | The Jose Vilson

A Repertoire for the Imperfect | The Jose Vilson:

A Repertoire for the Imperfect

by Jose

El Cantante

Last night, my fiancee and I watched El Cantante, a first-person retelling of legendary salsa star Hector Lavoe’s life of music, drugs, and suicide through the eyes of his wife Nilda “Puchi” Perez. For anyone who caught the movie and knew anything about the music and times in which the movie takes place, you’d agree with Willie Colon’s assessment that the creators of this movie “missed an opportunity to do something of relevance for our community. The real story was about Hector fighting the obstacles of a non-supportive industry that took advantage of entertainers with his charisma and talent. Instead they did another movie about two Puerto Rican junkies.”

As I started looking at all the so-called heroes from the histories I can remember, my first assessment could be

New initiative: $10B for K-12, preschools | Thoughts on Public Education

New initiative: $10B for K-12, preschools | Thoughts on Public Education:

New initiative: $10B for K-12, preschools - by John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

by John Fensterwald - Educated Guess

An initiative that would raise $10 billion for K-12 education and preschools by raising the state income tax, primarily on the rich, will be submitted to the Attorney General’s office for review this week, the first step for placing it on the November 2012 ballot. The initiative would target low-income students, who’d get a larger [...]

Understanding the ‘why’ behind teacher evaluations is critical to their success - by Judy Burton

by Judy Burton

A poll released last week by USC and the LA Times tells us that the public approves of measuring teacher effectiveness through a combination of indicators including the academic growth of their students. The U.S. Department of Education has made measuring and improving teaching effectiveness a fundamental component of its reform efforts and requires it [...]

Thomas Ratliff on end-of-course exams | The Education Front Blog | dallasnews.com

Thomas Ratliff on end-of-course exams | The Education Front Blog | dallasnews.com:

Thomas Ratliff on end-of-course exams

by William McKenzie/ Editorial Columnist

Editor's Note: The Education Front asked Thomas Ratliff, a State Board of Education member, to discuss his proposal to let high school students pass a course even if they failed the state's new end-of-course exam in the subject. Students who fail the test still would get credit if they had a grade of at least 70 in the course. Texas legislators previously had decided that end-of-course exams should count for at least 15 percent of a student's final grade. The State Board of Education has yet to approve Ratliff's proposal, which the East Texan explains below:

You proposed eliminating the requirement that end-of-course exams count as 15 percent of a student's grade. Why?

The Texas Legislature has gone too far in taking control away from locally-elected school board members. Accountability is one thing, but the unwavering march towards more emphasis on high-stakes standardized

THE LAUSD BOARD GAME: KIND OF LIKE MONOPOLY...ONLY DIFFERENT - Perdaily.com

THE LAUSD BOARD GAME: KIND OF LIKE MONOPOLY...ONLY DIFFERENT (EL LAUSD tablero de juego: algo así como MONOPOLY ... sólo diferente) - Perdaily.com:

THE LAUSD BOARD GAME: KIND OF LIKE MONOPOLY...ONLY DIFFERENT (EL LAUSD tablero de juego: algo así como MONOPOLY ... sólo diferente)

by Leonard Isenberg

(Mensaje se repite en Español)

(For a national view of public education reform see the end of this blog post)

New for the holiday season for those of you who are looking for the gift that keeps on taking. It is called the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board Game, it has very little to do with education and everything to do with making obscene amounts of money at whatever the cost.

For those of you who have played Monopoly in the past, the transition to the LAUSD Board Game should be rather straight forward. Like Monopoly, it's all about money, but adds the crucial function of

The Best Reflective Posts I’ve Written About My Teaching Practice In 2011 | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

The Best Reflective Posts I’ve Written About My Teaching Practice In 2011 | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…:

The Best Reflective Posts I’ve Written About My Teaching Practice In 2011

by Larry Ferlazzo

The end-of-year lists continue….

Most of the titles are self-explanatory.

Research Studies Of The Week

by Larry Ferlazzo

I often write about research studies from various field and how they can be applied to the classroom. I write individual posts about ones that I think are especially significant, and will continue to do so. However, so many studies are published that it’s hard to keep up. So I’ve started writing a “round-up” of some of them each week or every other week as a regular feature:

Problem-Based Learning in K-12 Education: Is It Effective and How Does It Achieve Its Effects? is a new study

Strike & Actions Against Police Brutality at the UC « occupy california

Strike & Actions Against Police Brutality at the UC « occupy california:

Letter to President Yudof objecting to hiring William Bratton to investigate UC Davis pepper-spray incident

by *

November 27, 2011

President Mark G. Yudof
University of California
1111 Franklin St., 12th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607
Fax: (510) 987-9086

Dear President Yudof,

The Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA) protests your decision to hire the Kroll Security Group, and its Chairman William Bratton, to conduct what you call an independent investigation of police violence at UC Davis. We take no position here on Mr. Bratton’s personal qualifications; our objection is to the conflicts of interest of Kroll Security itself, which is already a major contractor with UC on security matters. According to its website, Kroll’s services are not confined to securing databases and facilities from attacks by criminals and terrorists. It also protects many global financial institutions and other multinationals against threats to “operations” that may come from public criticism and direct political action.

By deepening UC’s links to Kroll, you would be illustrating the kinds of connection between public higher education and Wall Street that the Occupy UC movement is protesting. Kroll’s parent company, Altegrity, provides data-mining, intelligence and on-the-ground security to financial institutions and governments seeking to head off and defeat both private sabotage and public protest. In addition, Altegrity’s parent company, Providence

Strike & Actions Against Police Brutality at the UC

by *

CALIFORNIA – On Friday, November 18, students at UC Davis followed UC Berkeley protests the previous week and set up tents in the UCD quad in solidarity with students and faculty beat at UC Berkeley and the occupation movement. When UC police ordered a dispersal of the quad, non-violent protestors sat down and linked arms. At this point, Officer Pike retrieved a can of pepper spray and casually sprayed sitting students three times. An angry crowd began to gather around the police, demanding they leave — after which, the police conceded and left. Demonstrators gathered and called for a rally that following Monday. On Monday, some 5-10,000 students, workers and faculty gathered in the UCD quad and held a General Assembly. The UC Davis GA last Monday ratified a call for a strike for today, November 28. Solidarity actions have been organized at multiple other UC campuses. Among the top concerns include resignation of UCD Chancellor Katehi, some form of accountability of UC police or no police on campus (see UCD English Dept.), and no tuition increases. Today is also the first day of the UC Regents meeting that was rescheduled due to planned protests; this meeting will be teleconferenced from several locations including UC Davis.

Updates:

#OccupyLA Refuses To Leave, Police Attempting To Evict Now

by OccupyWallSt

Yesterday we reported about the planned eviction of Occupy Los Angeles. Occupiers have refused to leave and the police are currently enclosing. Thousands have arrived to defend Solidarity Park, forming human chains. Watch it live:

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NYC Educator: One Size Fits All

NYC Educator: One Size Fits All:

One Size Fits All

by NYC Educator

I really love Chris Pearce's comic/ teacher blog. I'm fairly persuaded that it must be fun to be in his class, and see the incredible drawings he uses to illustrate whatever he happens to be teaching. Recently Chris attended a PD session in which he was urged to relate to kids via rap.

Hey, if you want to do that, and it works for you, God bless. If Chris can reach kids via his art, that's great. If you can do plate-spinning, lion-taming, opera-singing, or whatever to get the attention of your kids, that's wonderful. The thing that continually boggles my mind is that the People in Charge still observe one thing, done by one teacher, and insist it must be replicated everywhere without exception.

That shows incredibly limited imagination, a quality I would not want in any teacher. You won't see me putting on a backward baseball cap and rapping to my class anytime soon. And while I love the comics Chris draws, I'm

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Principals revolt against the testing madness

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Principals revolt against the testing madness:

Principals revolt against the testing madness

by Mike Klonsky

NYT's Mike Winerip gives credit to Obama along with John B. King Jr., the New York State commissioner of education, for spurring what is believed to be the first principals’ revolt in history.

As of last night, 658 principals around the state had signed a letter — 488 of them from Long Island, where the insurrection began — protesting the use of students’ test scores to evaluate teachers’ and principals’ performance.

It is hard to overstate how angry the principals who signed are. Mario Fernandez, principal of Stillwater High School near Saratoga, called the evaluation process a product of “ludicrous, shallow thinking.”

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

by Mike Klonsky

Students from Cleveland High visit the Occupy L.A. site at City Hall to ask questions for their civics class.

Occupy L.A.

"It fits in with everything we're doing," said Rebecca Williams, an English literature teacher at the Reseda school. "It's a real-life movement — history in the making." --L.A. Times

Education lagging for Mexican students in N.Y.

“We are stanching an educational hemorrhage, but only partially,” said Robert C. Smith, a

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Top 8 Most Read Posts on Cool Cat Teacher 2011

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Top 8 Most Read Posts on Cool Cat Teacher 2011:

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 11/28/2011

by coolcatteacher@gmail.com (Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher)

Diigo It! | 21C Global
I love Suzie Nestico's explanation of how we use Diigo for the Flat Classroom projects and her alignment with the common core writing standards. (She's a social studies teacher, by the way.) She impresses me more and more.
tags: education flatclassroom diigo
One in Four Hackers Works for the U.S. Government | Techland | TIME.com
25% of hackers work for the US FBI.

Daily Kos: Paul Krugman argues to raise some taxes

Daily Kos: Paul Krugman argues to raise some taxes:

Paul Krugman argues to raise some taxes

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

The I.R.S. reports that in 2007, that is, before the economic crisis, the top 0.1 percent of taxpayers — roughly speaking, people with annual incomes over $2 million — had a combined income of more than a trillion dollars. That’s a lot of money, and it wouldn’t be hard to devise taxes that would raise a significant amount of revenue from those super-high-income individuals.
For example, a recent report by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center points out that before 1980 very-high-income individuals fell into tax brackets well above the 35 percent top rate that applies today. According to the center’s analysis, restoring those high-income brackets would have raised $78 billion in 2007, or more than half a percent of G.D.P. I’ve extrapolated that number using Congressional Budget Office projections, and what I get for the next decade is that high-income taxation could shave more than $1 trillion off the deficit.

NYC Public School Parents: The New Teacher Project's weird & crazy teacher survey

NYC Public School Parents: The New Teacher Project's weird & crazy teacher survey:

The New Teacher Project's weird & crazy teacher survey

by Leonie Haimson

The New Teacher Project, an organization which Michelle Rhee once ran, is closely aligned with DOE, and which strongly advocates against seniority protections and for merit pay and evaluations linked to test scores, posted a survey for NYC teachers. This survey, which originally had a deadline of Friday, December 3, seems to have been taken down early, perhaps because publicity leaked out about it on our NYC Ed list serv.

The survey contained many strange, three level choices that are difficult to rationalize or interpret, but appear to be designed to get results that favor its policy agenda and against other reforms like class size reduction. Here’s a typical question:

Which would you prefer: A school with…

Average school leadership

Poor school leadership

Latest News and Comment from Education

Monday, November 28, 2011

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