Table Of ContentJEducChange(2017)18:465–494
DOI10.1007/s10833-017-9301-4
Continuous improvement in the public school context:
Understanding how educators respond to plan–do–
study–act cycles
Ariel Tichnor-Wagner1 • John Wachen2 •
Marisa Cannata3 • Lora Cohen-Vogel2
Publishedonline:15June2017
(cid:2)SpringerScience+BusinessMediaDordrecht2017
Abstract The last 5 years have witnessed growing support amongst government
institutions and educational foundations for applying continuous improvement
research (CIR) in school settings. CIR responds to the challenge of implementing
effective educational innovations at scale by working with practitioners in local
contexts to understand ‘‘what works, for whom, and under what conditions.’’ CIR
works to achieve system improvement through the use of plan–do–study–act
(PDSA) cycles, which are multiple tests of small changes. This comparative case
study oftwourban school districts examined how innovation designteams took up
PDSAintheirworktoimprovehighschoolstudentoutcomes,andtheirperceptions
of PDSA as an approach to innovation development, adaptation, and implementa-
tion. Findings revealed both possibilities and challenges for implementing PDSA.
Nearly all participants reported the value in PDSA, and participants pointed to
connectionstopreviousexperiencesandPDSAtrainingashelpingtobuildcapacity.
However, we found mixed levels of enthusiasm for actually conducting PDSA
cycles, and capacity constraints regarding time and data collection.
Keywords School improvement (cid:2) Continuous improvement research (cid:2) School
districts
& ArielTichnor-Wagner
[email protected]
1 ASCD,1703N.BeauregardSt.,Alexandria,VA22311,USA
2 UniversityofNorthCarolinaatChapelHill,ChapelHill,NC,USA
3 VanderbiltUniversity,Nashville,TN,USA
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Introduction
The last 5 years have witnessed growing support amongst government institutions
and educational foundations for applying continuous improvement research (CIR)
in school settings. CIR responds to the challenge of implementing effective
educational innovations at scale by working with practitioners in local contexts to
understand ‘‘what works, for whom, and under what conditions’’ (Cohen-Vogel
et al. 2015; Park et al. 2013). Proponents of CIR argue that real, lasting
improvementrequirescombiningscientificdisciplineandpractitionerknowledgeof
local context across a diverse set of school conditions (Bryk 2009; Lewis 2015).
Theoreticallyandinpractice,CIRworkstoachievesystemimprovementthrough
the use of multiple tests of small changes (Morris and Hiebert 2011). These tests
rely on a plan–do–study–act (PDSA) cycle, which guides practitioners to set
measurable aims and test whether the changes they make result in improvement
(Deming 2000). During PDSA cycles, practitioners ‘‘Plan’’ a change to be tested,
‘‘Do’’ the test, ‘‘Study’’ the data they collected during the test, and ‘‘Act’’ on what
they have learned from the test by abandoning, revising, or scaling up the change
(Langley et al. 2009).
Fields including industry and healthcare began using continuous improvement
approaches in earnest more than two decades ago, and have, since that time,
demonstrated improved outcomes as a result (e.g., Bhuiyan and Baghel 2005;
Deming 2000). Increasingly, the PDSA framework is being used in educational
settings; early indications suggest that in education, too, CIR is showing promise.
For example, in the Middle School Mathematics and the Institutional Setting of
Teaching (MIST) project, researchers worked with practitioners in four districts to
establish an empirically grounded theory of action for improving the quality of
mathematicsinstructionatscale(Cobbetal.2013).Theimprovementapproachled
to new decision-making routines in the districts and to robust instructional
improvements in mathematics among teachers. The Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching’s Pathways program, an initiative that uses a CIR
approach to solve the problem of low developmental math completion rates, has
also shown promising results. Through Pathways, networks of educators across 19
community colleges in five states designed and tested a new approach for teaching
developmental mathematics. In the first 3 years of implementing two new courses,
Statway and Quantway, approximately 50% of students enrolled in the courses
successfully completed the pathways, which is substantially higherthan the typical
completion rates of students in traditional developmental math sequences (Sowers
and Yamada 2015).
Despite these early successes, little is known about the viability of widespread
use of CIR in K-12 public school settings. Drawing on data from our continuous
improvement work with two large, urban school districts as part of The National
Center for Scaling Up Effective Schools, we seek to understand how school and
district personnel, researchers, and development specialists respond to the use of
PDSA cycles to design and test educational innovations that emphasized both
rigorous academic and social-emotional learning for high school students. We
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examinehow,whenworkingininnovationdesignteamstoimplementimprovement
cyclesforthefirsttime,practitionersanddevelopmentpartnersperceivedtheirwill
andcapacity tocarry outPDSAcycles. Specifically,weask:(1)Whatwasthewill
of innovation design team members to implement PDSA, and what aspects of will
impacted how they engaged? (2) What was the capacity of innovation design team
memberstoimplementPDSA,andwhataspectsofcapacityimpactedhowcapacity
was built? (3) How do these aspects of will and capacity compare across the two
districts?
Before answering these questions, we begin with an overview of the CIR
approachanditsorigins.ThefollowingsectiondescribesthekeyfeatureofCIR:the
plan–do–study–act cycles used to test changes in real world settings. Next, we
discuss will and capacity, key tenets from the implementation literature, and why
we believe their study is important in determining to what extent educators are
likely to adopt CIR to solve problems of practice. In the methods section, we
describe the research settings and data we collected in order to examine
participants’ will and capacity to use PDSA. We include in that section a
description of the learning opportunities (i.e., training and resources) participants
received on PDSA. We then present the case of PDSA implementation in each
district,followedbyacross-casecomparisonthatdrawsoutthecommonalitiesand
contrasts in PDSA implementation between the two districts.
The ‘science of improvement’: What is it and from where did it come?
In a 2011 Education Week article, Anthony Bryk of the Carnegie Foundation
proposed a ‘‘science of improvement’’—a productive synthesis, in his view, of the
strengths of randomized control trials and action research. The improvement
approach is distinct from traditional forms of quantitative research in at least four
ways.First,whereasconventionalresearchinthequantitativetraditionoftenaimsto
holdvariablesconstantandusesasetoffixedprocedurestocarryoutthework,CIR
‘‘focusesoncharacterizingthesituationinallitscomplexity’’andusesaniterative,
flexible process wherein design and research plans are revised as the work
progresses (Barab and Squire 2004, p. 4; Lewis 2015). Second, whereas traditional
researchprimarilyfocusesonoutcomesofinterventions,CIRalsoinvolvesstudyof
thedesignprocess;thereisaninterest,thatistosay,inunderstandingtheworkings
of the approach itself in an effort to improve it the next time (Bryk et al. 2015).
Third, whereas traditional research ‘‘uses well-validated tools to measure imple-
mentation and impact,’’ CIR utilizes ‘‘practical measurement tools’’ that test the
indicators predicted in the theory of change (Lewis 2015, p. 56). Such measures
providequickfeedbackintothesystem,usingasmallnumberoftargetedquestions.
Fourthisareconceptualizationoftheresearcher’srole.Althoughpainsareoften
taken in traditional quantitative research to keep researchers ‘‘outside’’ the
intervention being tested, CIR purposely involves the researchers in innovation
design and revision. Moreover, researchers ‘‘are expected to become smarter about
how to target issues that matter’’ to educators and about ‘‘how to conduct solid
researchwithintheconstraintsofpracticingeducationsystems’’(MeansandHarris
2013,p.360).Theroleofparticipantsintheresearchisdifferenttoo,aligningmore
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with the tradition of action research: ‘‘Whereas traditional research often treats
participants (e.g., teachers) as subjects, improvement science includes participants
in the design process, involving them as equals in the work’’ (Cohen-Vogel et al.
2015, p. 12).
WhileCIRisnewtoeducation,ithasrootsinbusinessandhealthcare(Bheuyan
and Baghel 2005). Attributed to the twentieth century statistician W. Edwards
Deming,theimprovementapproachwasfurtherdevelopedinhealthcarebyDonald
Berwick (Mann 1993), who co-founded the Institute for Healthcare Improvement
(IHI)in1989.Sinceitsinception,IHIhasdrivenhealthcareimprovementresearch;
today, its website contains links to more than 1000 publications related to
improvement in health care delivery and outcomes (Shortell et al. 1998). To help
explain a surge in the use of the improvement approach in public health and
industry, Berwick points to Associates in Process Improvement (API) and its
Improvement Guide: A Practical Approach to Enhancing Organizational Perfor-
mance (see Langley et al. 2009). The publication of The Improvement Guide
(Langley et al. 2009), a comprehensive description of the frameworks, tools, and
processesofimprovementscience,hasalsofueledtheuseofCIRamongeducators
and educational researchers (Cohen-Vogel et al. 2015; Lewis 2015).
Anothercatalystfortheadoptionofimprovementmodelsineducationistheuse
of designed-based implementation research, a close cousin of CIR, which focuses
on design and testing in local contexts and emphasizes collaboration between
researchers and practitioners (Anderson and Shattuck 2012; Fishman et al. 2013).
Further, CIR and design-based research build on the tradition of action research,
wherein practitioners use data collection and analysis to evaluate how to improve
their practice. Action research contains ‘‘a spiral of self-reflective cycles’’ that
include the following: planning a change, acting and observing the change process
and results, reflecting on the process and results, and re-planning (Kemmis and
McTaggart 2005).
CIR in practice can vary substantially, depending on discipline, context, goals,
and other characteristics of the research project. For example, ‘‘Networked
Improvement Communities’’(NICs)are atthecoreoftheapproachtoCIRutilized
by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. NICs are
professional networks that facilitate the transfer of information across contexts,
thereby allowing for greater collective knowledge (Dolle et al. 2013). Other
approachesemphasizedesign-basedimplementationresearch,whereteamsfocuson
identifiedproblemsofpracticeanduseiterative,collaborativedesigntounderstand
boththeproblemandpotentialsolutions,butalsohowtoimplementthesesolutions
(Fishman et al. 2013). Most enactments of CIR take the form of research-
practitioner partnerships, in which the focus is on problems that practitioners, in
collaborationwithresearchers,identifyasrelevanttopractice.Ratherthanfocusing
on gaps in research or theory, research priorities explicitly respond to practitioner
needs (Penuel et al. 2015; Tseng 2012).
The approach utilized in the partnership described in this study has elements of
theseotherapproaches.Althougharesearcher-practitionerpartnershipwasacentral
aspect of the work, the initial research phase of the work did not directly involve
practitioners in identifying problems of practice and research priorities. Instead,
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researchers collected and analyzed data in the participating districts and identified
effective practices across higher-performingschools thatwere then shared withthe
practitioner teams. The collaborative work began with the development of specific
innovationsbasedontheseeffectivepractices.The‘‘SettingandContextofPDSA’’
section below provides additional information about the characteristics of the
project reported on in this study.
Plan–do–study–act cycle: The crux of continuous improvement
At the crux of CIR is the plan–do–study–act (PDSA) cycle. PDSA cycles test a
change in real world settings and help improvement teams determine whether a
changeisanimprovement(Langleyetal.2009).Similartoactionresearch,aPDSA
cycleconsistsoffourparts.First,theimprovementteamplansthetest,askingwhat
change (‘‘prototype’’) will be tested, with whom/with what measures it will be
tested, and what changes are expected as the result of trying out the prototype.
Second, theteam doesthe test,gatheringinformationonwhat happenedduringthe
testandasaresultofit.Third,theteamstudiestheinformationgatheredduringthe
test, comparing it with predictions made about the prototype’s effects. Having
studiedtheinformation,theteamacts,makingadecisionaboutwhethertoabandon
the prototype, revise it, or scale it up with a larger number of users.
After testingthe change onasmallscale—withafewteachersorclassrooms—
PDSAcyclesrepeat(seeFig. 1).Theimprovementteamlearnsfromeachtest,refines
the change, and then may implement the change on a broader scale—for example,
withanentiregradelevel.Aftersuccessfulimplementationwithinaunit,theteamcan
continue to use PDSA to spread, or bring to scale, the change to other parts of the
organizationorotherorganizationsentirely,effectivelyusingittoadaptthechangeto
newcontexts,resultinginsystemchange.Thiskindofcycledinquirycantakevarious
Fig.1 RepeateduseofPDSAcycle.(AdaptedfromLangleyetal.2009)
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forms(e.g.,RCTs,quasi-experimentaldesigns)andaffordsadaptationtocontextor
whatsomerefertoas‘‘localtestsofchange’’(Parketal.2013).
Lengths of test cycles vary. Although short (90-day) cycles are common,
improvement science allows for short- and long-cycle testing, depending on the
research questions and nature of the change itself. By encouraging early and
iterative testing of ideas in the specific environment of interest, the improvement
model allows the innovation to be gradually modified to the uniqueness of the
system in which it is being implemented (Langley et al. 2009).
In an example from The National Center for Scaling Up Effective Schools,
innovation design teams in Broward County, Florida used findings from a
comprehensive study of their high schools to design an innovation prototype they
called PASL, or Personalization for Academic and Social-Emotional Learning.
Among its other components, the PASL innovation would assign every 9th grade
student to a PASL teacher who was responsible for conducting ‘‘rapid check-ins’’
(RCIs) with these students. Rapid check-ins consisted of very brief, impromptu
interactions between a PASL teacher and her assigned students, during which the
teacherwouldsimply‘checkin’withthestudentaboutherday,howhersportsteam
fared last night, or whether she is looking forward to Homecoming, for example.
Design team members expected RCIs to build teachers’ knowledge about the
interests and concerns of their students and, as a result, improve students’ sense of
connection to the school.
TotestRCIs,duringthe‘‘Plan’’phase,theinnovationdesignteamsatthreestudy
schools identifiedasmallsubset ofteacherswithwhomtotrythem out.Theteams
assignedtheseteacherstostudentsinoneoftheirclassperiodsandgaveteachersan
RCI log to record the number of rapid check-ins they conducted with each student
over a 2-week period. After the 2 weeks of testing during the ‘‘Do’’ phase ended,
innovation design team members met with the implementing teachers to ‘‘Study’’
the RCI logs and gather feedback from teachers. Feedback indicated the logs were
toocumbersome,andtheinnovationteam‘‘Acted’’tosimplifytheformandtryout
the RCIs with a larger number of teachers.
Inthisstudy,theimprovementteamswereintroducedtothePDSAapproachwith
two objectives in mind: (1) to further develop, refine, implement, and scale the
designedcomponentsofaninnovation,and(2)tobuildthecapacityofschoolsandthe
districttoengageincontinuousimprovementforinnovationstheymightimplement
in the future. Rather than examining whether PDSA led to improved teacher and
studentoutcomes,weanalyzedhowpractitionersanddevelopmentpartnersworking
inhighschoolsrespondtothechallengeofutilizingthePDSAapproachbyexamining
theirperceivedwillandcapacitytoengageinthistypeofimprovementprocessand
comparingtheseaspectsofwillandcapacityacrossdistricts.
Will and capacity: A framework for examining perceptions of PDSA
As a relatively new approach in education, it is important to understand educators’
perceptions of implementing PDSA. This is particularly important as the evidence
from healthcare has pointed to challenges associated with implementing the four
componentsofPDSAinacyclicalfashion(OgrincandShojania2014;Tayloretal.
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2014).Onechallengehasbeenattitudinal,forexample,healthcareprofessionalsnot
seeing the value of documentation during the ‘‘Do’’ and ‘‘Study’’ phase (Reed and
Card2016)andhavingissuesadjustingtheirperceptionofrigortoencompassmore
than RCTs (Berwick 1998). Another set of challenges has related to healthcare
professionals’ capacity to implement PDSA cycles, including time and money
constraints (Berwick 1998) and the frequency, relevance, and reliability of data
collected to inform the ‘‘Study’’ and ‘‘Act’’ phases (Reed and Card 2016; Taylor
et al. 2014).
These attitudinal and ability-related challenges reflect what implementation
researchineducationhaslongnoted,‘‘whatmattersmosttopolicyoutcomesarelocal
capacity and will’’ (McLaughlin 1990, p. 12). Will is the motivation to embrace
reformobjectives,whichincludesbelievinginthevalueofareform(e.g.,believing
thatanewcurricularframeworkwillleadtostudentimprovements)andaneagerness
‘‘tocommitenergyandefforttoitssuccess’’(McLaughlin1990,p.13).Capacityis
theknowledge,skills,organizationalroutines,resources,andpersonnelavailableto
supportimplementation(Firestone1989;McLaughlin1990;Spillaneetal.2002).An
individual’s capacity to enact a given reform may be influenced by their prior
knowledgeandexperiences,whichmaycloudone’sunderstandingofwhatareformis
askingthemtodo.Implementersmayinterpretthesamemessageindifferentways,
misinterpretnewideasasfamiliar,orfocusonsuperficialfeaturesratherthandeeper
differencesbetweencurrentknowledgeorpracticesandnewreforms(Spillaneetal.
2002).Thismayleadtoalackofabilitytoimplementareformasthedesignintended,
evenwhenimplementersexpressthewilltodoso.
Traditionalimplementationresearchhaslargelyportrayedalackoflocalwilland
capacity as impediments to reform (Firestone 1989; Spillane et al. 2002). Yet will
and capacity are not inherent, fixed conditions; both can be shaped by the learning
opportunities that implementers experience (Cohen and Hill 2001) and the
organizational and political contexts in which they work (McLaughlin 1990).
Therefore,wefirstexplainthedistrictcontextandthePDSAlearningopportunities
thatpractitionersexperiencedbeforeturningtoourfindingsonthewillandcapacity
of high school practitioners to implement PDSA. Given that will and capacity
influence the extenttowhich new processes andprograms are implemented, which
in turn mediates the efficacy of those processes and programs, these findings serve
as a vital first step in ascertaining whether using PDSA cycles in school contexts
lead to replicable, scalable innovations.
Methods
Drawing upon data from a multi-year research project conducted by The National
CenterforScalingUpEffectiveSchools,weemployacomparativecasestudy(Yin
2009) of innovation design teams in two large, urban districts engaging in
improvement work. Members of the innovation design teams included district
central office and high school practitioners, researchers, and development special-
ists.Duringthe2012–2013schoolyear,theinnovationdesignteamparticipatedina
‘‘design challenge,’’ which charged them with developing an innovation based on
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the core elements of a set of practices that researchers identified in year-long case
studiesoffourhighschoolsineachoftworespectivedistricts(TheNationalCenter
for Scaling up Effective Schools for more about the schools themselves). This
innovation would first be implemented in three innovation high schools and
eventually scaled up to other high schools across the district. As such, the
practitioners involved in the innovation design team for each district included
teacher and administrative representatives from the three innovation schools, at-
large members from other high schools in the district, and central office
administrators. The two innovation design teams began implementing PDSA in
the2013–2014schoolyearto‘‘test’’componentsoftheinnovationprototypeinthe
three innovation high schools. This study examined the design team members’
perceptions of PDSA during this first year of PDSA implementation.
Setting and context of PDSA
District context
We hypothesized that,similartoinnovations or policies, the implementationof the
PDSA approach would be influenced by the contexts of the two districts.
Specifically, educators’ responses to and perceptions of the approach may be
influenced by a variety of contextual factors, including previous experiences with
CIR (or CIR-like approaches), accountability pressures, and other district-level
structures and policies. Table 1 provides an overview of the Broward and Fort
Worth district contexts where PDSA implementation occurred. Both districts are
large,culturally-,linguistically-,andeconomically-diverseurbanschooldistrictsin
states with long histories of high stakes accountability. Both districts had also
recently incorporated continuous improvement into their strategic plans. For
example,FortWorthadoptedtheBaldrigeExcellenceFramework,whichinvolvesa
systems approach to organizational improvement and includes a PDSA model,
shortly before PDSA was introduced as part of this work. However, the use of
PDSAcyclesasapartofanimprovementprocesswasnovicetothepractitionerson
both districts’ innovation design teams.
The improvement work was organized similarly in the two districts, with the
innovationdesignteamresponsiblefordesigninganddevelopingtheinnovationand,
subsequently,adaptingtheinnovationtoeachschoolcontextthroughPDSAcycles.The
innovationdesignteamsweresimilarlycomposedacrossthedistricts,althoughtheFort
Worthteamshadslightlymorerepresentationfromclassroomteachers.Inadditionto
the school and district practitioners, researchers, and development specialists, each
district had a liaison who helped coordinate activities in the district and served as a
bridgebetweentheresearchers/developmentspecialistsandpractitioners.
While following similar improvement processes, the two districts designed
innovationsthatwereuniqueandresponsivetofindingsfromcasestudiesconducted
by researchers in each district. In Broward, the innovation focused on Personal-
ization for Academic and Social Emotional Learning (PASL). In Fort Worth, the
innovation focused on building Student Ownership And Responsibility (SOAR).
Table 1 enumerates the components of each innovation.
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Table1 Districtcharacteristics
BrowardCountyPublicSchools(FL) FortWorthIndependentSchoolDistrict
(TX)
Districtcontext
Student 262,563 84,588
enrollment
Student 40%Black,30%Hispanic,24%White 63%Hispanic,23%Black,11%White
demographics 60%economicallydisadvantaged 77%economicallydisadvantaged
14%EnglishLanguageLearner 31%EnglishLanguageLearner
Numberofhigh 33 16
schools
State APlus(A-F)schoolgradingsystem Firstschoolaccountabilityratings
accountability introducedin1999;highschoolsassigned introducedin1993.Newhighschool
context gradesbasedonstudentperformance, assessmentsystem(asetoftwelveEndof
participation/performanceinaccelerated Courseexams)introducedin2011–2012
curricula,graduationrate,andcollege Highschoolsratedas‘‘MetStandards’’or
readiness ‘‘ImprovementRequired,’’basedon
High-stakestestingforstudentsandteachers meetingoverallachievementbenchmark,
Teacherevaluationincludesvalue-added closingperformancegaps,and
measures postsecondaryreadinessmeasures
Continuous 2012–2013strategicplanincluded 2013strategicplanadoptedBaldridge
improvement continuousimprovementasoneofthree ContinuousImprovementCycleto
experience coregoals monitorandimprovedistrictperformance.
Limiteddistrictcapacitytodesignnew ThisincludesPDSAcycles
programs,sotheyadoptestablished In2013–2014,PDSAevidentmostlyin
programs districtcentralofficeoperations
Districtinnovationdesignteamcomposition
Development 2 3
specialists
Researchers 3 3
Teachers/faculty 10 9
School 2 5
administrators
District 3 5
administrators
Schoolinnovationdesignteamcomposition
Teachers/faculty 11 14
School 2 1
administrators
Innovationcharacteristics
Name PersonalizationforAcademicandSocial StudentOwnershipandResponsibility
EmotionalLearning(PASL) (SOAR)
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Table1 continued
BrowardCountyPublicSchools(FL) FortWorthIndependentSchoolDistrict
(TX)
Major Assigneach9thgradestudenttoaPASL Developgrowthmindsetsinstudents
components teacher throughintroductorylessonsand
Formeducatorteamstorespondtostudents’ classroomextensionpractices
individualneeds Buildstudentproblem-solvingskillsthrough
Makeintentionalpointsofcontact(IPCs) explicitinstructionandapplicationin
withstudentsthroughRapidCheck-Ins academicandsocial-emotionalchallenges
(RCIs)andProblem-solvingmeetings Goalsettingandplanninginstructionto
(PSMs) integrateproblem-solvinginacademic
Createnormsforengagementtobuilda context
PASLculture Behavioralreflectionsheetthatencourages
Provideinstructioningoalachievement studentstoreframetheirmindsetandwork
skills throughproblem-solvingsteps
Makeintentionaluseofinformationtoplan Teacherprofessionaldevelopmentandon-
PASLactivitiesandidentifystudentswho goinglearninginProfessionalLearning
needadditionalsupport Communities
Fig.2 PDSAlearningopportunitiestimeline
PDSA learning opportunities
As illustrated in Fig. 2, the Broward and Fort Worth design teams received similar
PDSA trainings during the 2013–2014 school year. Researchers and development
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