Your donation will help us produce journalism like this. Please give today.

By Howard Blume

Nearly $2.3 million in donations made by charter school supporters during this year’s Los Angeles school board races were shielded from disclosure until after the election was over, a review of records shows.

Those contributions — from philanthropist Eli Broad, heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune, former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and others — were made prior to the May 19 election to California Charter Schools Assn. Advocates, a political action committee in Sacramento. That group then forwarded campaign funds to a local affiliated committee.

The Los Angeles-based PAC was required by campaign laws only to identify the state charter group as the source of the funding, not the individual donors. As a result, the donors remained anonymous in Los Angeles campaign filings. In September, the state charter group filed a required state report listing all its contributors.

Click here for the full story.