A coalition of philanthropists, parents, academics and business leaders aired an updated study of San Diego Unified schools at a press conference today, touting it as a call to action to change the way a "failing school system" is governed.
The University of San Diego study, commissioned by businessman Rod Dammeyer, is likely to be the opening salvo in a longer battle to alter how the school district is run. It draws no conclusions. But simply by airing data on test scores and finances and diagnosing the schools as failing, the group is taking its first public step toward a more concerted, more specific campaign.
The report was built largely on publicly available data from the California Department of Education from 2002 to 2009. Mayor Jerry Sanders, who has had little involvement in the schools so far, attended the event, calling the report "cause for great concern." Its findings