Howard Blume and Kevin Uhrich

In June of 1996, when the school was nearly 2 years old, auditors from Vavrinek, Trine & Day looked closely at 144 student files from one month. They found that 38 percent of the files had missing signatures or initials. "This high rate of noncompliance is of particular concern," wrote......

Karen Waters-Titus didn't know what to make of the enrollment form that came home from school with her fourth-grader one day last fall. Her son Cameron's private school in Inglewood was asking parents to join something called Cato, which would provide free books, computers and other school resources. Just sign......