www . ThESkaNNEr . COM
a uguST 10, 2011
S EaTTlE , w aShINgTON
V OluME XXXIII, N O . 41
25
CENTS
i nSide
Seattle Tattoo Expo
page 3
Tea Party Impasse
page 4
Mary J. Blige
C hallenging P eoPle to S haPe a B etter F uture n ow
page 6
cook-off
No Child
left
Behind?
Feds create waivers
for low-performing
school districts
By dorie turner
the associated Press
SuSan Fried Photo
T
Carrie Stone 5, and her dad Shomari a reporter for kOMO prepare to compete in the united Negro College Fund
BBQ Cook-off for Education, Saturday, aug. 6. The event was held in conjunction with umoja Fest and benefited the
uNCF Pacific Northwest Scholarship Fund.
Bank Sold after Scandal: Cleared
Federal probe into Washington Mutual ends with no charges
neW York (AP) — The
Justice Department says it has
closed its investigation into the
collapse of Washington Mutual
without any criminal charges
filed.
In September 2008, the feder-
al
government
seized
Washington Mutual’s flagship
bank, based in Seattle, and sold
its assets to JPMorgan Chase &
Co. for $1.9 billion. It was the
biggest bank failure in U.S. his-
tory.
The Justice Department, the
FBI and the Securities and
Exchange Commission opened
investigations into Washington
Mutual’s collapse shortly after,
in October 2008.
The U.S. attorney’s office for
the
western
district
of
Washington, which includes
Seattle, on Friday evening
issued a statement saying that
after an “extensive investigation
that included hundreds of inter-
views and the review of millions
of documents,” there were not
grounds for criminal charges.
In July, WaMu and other
defendants, including invest-
indeX
News .....................2,3,8
Calendar ....................2
Opinion ....................4,5
Bids/Classifieds.........6-7
ment bank Goldman Sachs &
Co. and accounting firm
Deloitte & Touche LLP, agreed
to pay $208.5 million to
investors to settle a class-action
lawsuit stemming from the
lender’s collapse.
In that settlement, plaintiffs
ranging from huge pension
funds to small individual inves-
tigators accused the company
and its banking executives of
securities fraud, claiming the
bank’s lending standards and
practices were misrepresented,
questionable business practices
were not disclosed and federal
financial reports were mislead-
ing.
Under the terms of the settle-
ment deal, Washington Mutual
and the other defendants did not
admit any wrongdoing.
The
Federal
Deposit
Insurance Corp. also filed a civil
lawsuit in March against former
WaMu CEO Kerry Killinger,
ex-Chief Operating Officer
Stephen Rotella and David
Schneider, who headed the
bank’s home loans division.
See Bank on page 3
he Obama administration effectively
gutted the Bush-era No Child Left
Behind law Monday, giving states a
way out of a decade-long policy that
focused on holding schools accountable but
labeled many of them failures even if they
made progress.
To get a waiver from the program, howev-
er, states must agree to host of education
reforms the White House favors - from
tougher evaluation systems for teachers and
principals to programs tackling the achieve-
ment gap for minority students.
The federal law, which requires every stu-
dent to be proficient in science and math by
2014, is four years past due for reauthoriza-
tion. But it’s become mired in the increas-
ingly bipartisan mood on Capitol Hill
despite repeated calls from President Barack
Obama and Education Secretary Arne
Duncan for changes to be made before the
school year starts. Obama sent an overhaul
proposal to Congress 16 months ago.
Duncan has warned that 82 percent of
U.S. schools could be labeled failures next
year if the law is not changed. Education
experts have questioned that estimate, but
state officials report a growing number of
schools facing sanctions under the law -
from having to offer free tutoring to being
forced to shut down entirely.
Tired of waiting for Congress to act,
Obama has told Duncan to move forward
with waivers, said Melody Barnes, director
of the Domestic Policy Council for the
White House.
“We have a federal law that’s an impedi-
ment, that’s getting in the way as a disin-
centive for the great work states are doing,”
Duncan said in a call with reporters Monday
afternoon. “That just doesn’t make sense at
a time when we have to get better faster than
ever before.”
Republicans bristled at the move.
See education on page 3
whistle-blower in Probe Pleads guilty
Soldier who complained about ‘death squad’ gets 3 years in prison
Joint BaSe leWiS-Mcchord,
Wash. (AP) — A soldier who tried to blow
the whistle on a plot to murder Afghan civil-
ians pleaded guilty at his court-martial
Friday to a charge of involuntary
manslaughter in one man’s death.
Spc. Adam Winfield of Cape Coral, Fla.,
is the second soldier to admit to participat-
ing in what the Army has characterized as
an Afghan “kill team.”
Winfield, 23, pleaded guilty in a plea
agreement to involuntary manslaughter and
to smoking hashish. The News Tribune of
Tacoma reports that military judge Col.
David Conn sentenced him to three years in
prison, demotion to private and a bad-con-
duct discharge. He has already spent a year
in custody. He had earlier been charged with
premeditated murder and could have faced
life in prison.
Winfield was one of five 5th Stryker
Brigade soldiers accused in the three civil-
ian deaths during patrols last year in
Kandahar Province in Afghanistan. The sol-
diers are accused of faking combat scenar-
ios to cover the killings.
The newspaper reported that on May 2,
2010, Winfield and another soldier, Pvt.
See PleadS on page 3