WWW . THESKANNER . COM
J UNE 19, 2013
S EATTLE , W ASHINGTON
V OLUME XXXV, N O . 37
25
CENTS
For The Skanner
news alerts
Text "NEWS" to
503-715-0890 or
scan this QR code
C HALLENGING P EOPLE TO S HAPE A B ETTER F UTURE N OW
‘Disaster
Cars’
Arrive
ART
FEST
Hurricane Sandy-
damaged vehicles
showing up for sale
Of The Skanner News
T
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
Fysah was one of many talented
musicians who performed at the
33rd Annual Festival Sundiata’s Black
Arts Fest, June 15-16 at Seattle
Center. This year’s event included
music and dance performances;
Delbert Richardson’s American
History exhibit of the black
experience; a classic car show,
representatives from the United
Negro College Fund, the Tuskegee
Airmen and a variety of other
vendors and non-profits. More
photos on page 6.
New Family Literacy Program
Read and Rise to wrap around parents of pre-schoolers through 3rd graders
M
ayor McGinn is tout-
ing a new program,
Read and Rise, to push
students toward literacy by third
grade.
The twist with this education-
al initiative is that it reaches out
to parents – with training work-
shops, reading materials and
training outlines for parents to
take home.
The program is set to start this
fall. Officials say the results ill
be “closely monitored to deter-
mine whether this investment is
having an impact on the success
of local students
“We know from research that
students who are not reading at
grade level by the third grade
are much more likely to drop
out of school,” McGinn said in a
statement. “This new program
will help give parents the skills
they need to support their kids
as they reach this critical mile-
stone.”
Read and Rise, a program cre-
ated by the children’s book pub-
lishers Scholastic, in Houston
saw the Urban League partner-
ing with the Houston Independ-
INDEX
News ...............2,3,5,6,8
Calendar ....................2
Opinion .......................4
Bids/Classifieds.........6,7
ent School District over more
than a decade to train parents on
how to raise their families’ liter-
acy levels.
According to an assessment
conducted by Scholastic, twelve
elementary schools identified
and served by the Urban League
were able to improve their test
scores and state rankings
through the program.
In Houston, Read and Rise
was specifically designed to
improve education achievement
for low-income families and
chronically underperforming
schools.
IN its success, Scholastic
specifically calls out the work of
Dr. Suzanne Carothers, a New
York University professor who
helped develop it.
McGinn says the Read and
Rise workshops will roll out in
partnership with schools and
community-based organizations
that will be named in July.
The program will focus on
communities and schools with a
high proportion of children who
are low-income and who may
See LITERACY on page 3
he Attorney General’s Office and the
Better Business Bureau warns that
flood damaged cars from Hurricane
Sandy are showing up for sale in the Pacific
Northwest – and it’s up to you to make sure
the vehicle you buy does not have flood
damage.
“Once the waters recede, scam artists
often descend into a flood area,” said Wash-
ington State Attorney General Bob Fergu-
son. “Buyer beware, protect yourself from
buying a rebuilt, water-logged wreck. Make
sure you check the history of the vehicle and
take a close look at the physical condition.”
“Don’t be fooled by shiny paint and a
‘new car’ smell,” says Robert W.G. Andrew,
CEO of BBB serving Alaska, Oregon and
Western Washington. “Unscrupulous sellers
will use every trick in the book to clean up
and sell totaled vehicles. If buyers aren’t
careful, the cars they end up with could be
loaded with hidden and serious problems.”
“This is what we’ve found in the past –
once we see one, we start to see more and
more complaints so we try to get ahead of
the issue,” said spokeswoman Janelle
Guthrie.
She said the most recent complaint the
office has received came from an eastern
Washington man who’d had the car for two
months and started having electrical prob-
lems.
“Then he opened things up and saw rust
and things that shouldn’t be there,” Guthrie
said. “When he looked more closely at the
history he saw it was from New Jersey.”
Flood damaged cars may look normal, but
almost always have serious problems
including chronic mildew and corroded
wires that lead to electrical failure.
Research the title and the vehicle identifi-
cation number at the National Motor Vehi-
cle
Title
Information
System,
www.vehiclehistory.gov and/or CARFAX,
www.flood.carfax.com. ‘Totaled’ cars get a
See CARS on page 3
Toughing Out New School Standards
Controversial ‘Common Core’ curriculum harder for kids, teachers
By Ann Dornfeld
KUOW
SEATTLE (AP) Language arts teacher
Christy Bowman-White leads a class at
Sylvester Middle School in Burien in a les-
son based on the Common Core State Stan-
dards.
This fall, some classes may get harder for
public school students — and teachers —
across Washington. That’s when many dis-
tricts will roll out new, more rigorous lan-
guage arts and math standards, known as the
Common Core. Washington is one of 45
states that have adopted the same set of K-
12 standards.
Some Washington teachers have already
started using them. At Sylvester Middle
School in Burien, teacher Christy Bowman-
White read a poem about a nail-biter bas-
ketball shot to her honors language arts
class on a recent school day.
“The ball slides up and out, lands, leans,
wobbles, wavers, hesitates, plays it coy,’’
Bowman-White read the poem slowly so
her students could savor each word.
Bowman-White had a very specific goal
for her class that day.
See SCHOOLS on page 3