More than 75 vocational schools under investigation
ideabug/istockphoto.comThe California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education last month directed its enforcement staff to investigate 77 schools with expired approvals. Bureau officials also decided in mid-May that all other schools that fail to renew their approvals on time will be immediately referred to the agency’s enforcement division. Officials also recently began notifying schools before their approvals are set to expire.
The changes follow an investigation by The Bay Citizen that revealed lapses in oversight by the postsecondary education bureau, including that it had allowed as many as 137 schools, representing 10 percent of the state’s private vocational schools, to operate for months without state approval. The investigation also found that the
State's top 100 political donors contribute $1.25 billion
This story was edited by Robert Salladay and Mark Katches and copy edited by Nikki Frick and Christine Lee.
These big spenders represent a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands of individuals and groups that donated to California campaigns from 2001 through 2011. But they supplied about a third of the $3.67 billion lavished on state campaigns during that time, campaign records show.
With a few exceptions, these campaign elites have gotten their money’s worth, according to an analysis by
How we identified the state’s top political donors
This story was edited by Robert Salladay and copy edited by Nikki Frick.
Kativ/istockphoto.comThe California Fair Political Practices Commission put out a report in March 2010 that looked at 15 groups that spent at combined $1 billion on lobbying and campaign contributions in a decade. California’s secretary of state has its “major donors” list. Although there are many similarities in our numbers, there are also some differences.