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M ARCH 7, 2012
S EATTLE , W ASHINGTON
V OLUME XXXIV, N O . 10
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C HALLENGING P EOPLE TO S HAPE A B ETTER F UTURE N OW
SAVE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
School
to Prison
Pipeline
Suspensions and
Expulsions Part 2:
Solutions and Failures
By Lisa Loving
Of The Skanner News
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
A
Sammy and Olivia, 3rd graders at Gatewood, joined teachers, parents and community members Thursday, March
1 for a March for Public Education from Westlake Park to the Gates Foundation headquarters. The marchers opposed
proposed legislation for publicly funded, privately owned and run charter schools. The group marched to the
headquarters of the Gates Foundation to protest their support for charter schools.
Lawmaker Retires from Congress
Rep. Norm Dicks says he’ll step down after a whopping 18 terms
By Chris Grygiel
and Andrew Taylor
The Associated Press
SEATTLE (AP) — As a
young man, he worked for the
late Warren Magnuson, a tower-
ing figure in the U.S. Senate
known for his ability to strike
deals and work with his fellow
Democrats as well as Republi-
cans. Almost four decades later,
Rep. Norm Dicks rose to nearly
equal stature in the House,
famous as a fierce advocate for
his state and labor interests but
still able to count opponents as
friends.
Dicks shocked the political
establishment Friday, announc-
ing he’ll retire at the end of the
year after 18 terms in Congress.
“I have been thinking about
this for years. At some point you
have to retire. I just decided this
was the right time,” Dicks told
The Associated Press.
In a statement, President
Barack Obama thanked Dicks
for his service. “Norm has spent
his career working to protect our
national security, championing
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Opinion ....................4,5
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the men and women of our
Armed Forces and fighting for
the many natural resources of
Washington State and the Pacif-
ic Northwest.”
The top Democrat on the pow-
erful House Appropriations
Committee, the 71-year-old for-
mer college football player has a
reputation as a defender of the
Pentagon and the Boeing Co.
and its unionized workforce.
The
aerospace
company
employs thousands of people in
his district.
“It comes as a surprise. He’s
been a mainstay of the Washing-
ton delegation for so long now,
it’s hard to imagine the delega-
tion without him,” said Sandeep
Kaushik, a Seattle Democratic
political consultant who has
worked on congressional races
in Washington state.
Over the years, Dicks has
been skilled at “earmarking” pet
projects like roads and commu-
nity development grants to his
northwest portion of the state.
But Republicans controlling the
House have banned the practice,
See NORM on page 3
n anonymous caller phoned The
Skanner News office to say 5-year-
old Camron Tarver is a real brat, and
that fact hadn’t been adequately reported in
our Feb. 23 story, ‘Suspensions, Expulsions
of Black Students: The School to Prison
Pipeline?’
While he admitted he doesn’t know the
family and has never been to the school but
has “friends who do,” the man angrily
insisted that Camron’s nine suspensions
since the start of kindergarten are not about
race.
In early February Camron’s mom, Tam-
berlee Tarver, testified about her little boy’s
well-documented disabilities and her con-
sistent inability to access special education
services from his school before Gov. John
Kitzhaber’s Oregon Education Investment
Board in Salem; subsequently the OEIB set
up a public forum March 6 at the Center for
Self Enhancement.
Sheila Warren of the Portland Parents
Union is worried that the families most
impacted by the racial disparities around
discipline are not being heard – in part for
the same reasons the anonymous caller tried
to defame the courageous kindergartner and
his mom last month.
“Partnerships and teamwork are the key,”
Warren says. “We must be intentional as
well as persistent and consistent in relation-
ship building through restorative listening
and dialogue.
“Please get as many families out as possi-
ble Tuesday night,” she says. “We need to
hear from the ones that are usually over-
looked. “
The simple fact is that families caught up
in the school disciplinary process are often
not listened to, are often disrespected and
shamed; they’ve “done something wrong.”
It’s a process that continues as the chil-
dren grow older and are disproportionately
See SUSPENSIONS on page 3
Scrutiny of Bank Overdraft Practices
‘Candid discussion’ on why customers pay billions in unfair fees
By Charlene Crowell
NNPA Columnist
W
hen the Consumer Financial Pro-
tection Bureau visited New York
City on Feb. 22, a roundtable dis-
cussion with bankers and consumer advo-
cates began a day of focused discussion of
bank products that cost customers billions
per year in unfair fees. In his opening
remarks, CFPB Director Richard Cordray
called for a “candid discussion” and noted
how less than 10 percent of checking
account customers bear the brunt of more
than 80 percent of all overdraft fees charged
by banks.
Director Cordray announced new a new
initiative wherein the agency will examine
the practice of reordering customer transac-
tions to boost overdraft fees. CFPB will also
look at disclosures and marketing, particu-
larly with an eye toward impact on the low-
income and young consumers.
Roundtable participant Rebecca Borne,
senior policy counsel with the Center for
Responsible Lending, advised that overdraft
fees are the number one reason bank cus-
tomers lose their checking accounts.
See BANKS on page 3