MAN ON A MISSION:

Give him an A for ambition (Joel Rubin, February 20, 2007, LA Times)

STEVE Barr may not be a household name, but he is doing more these days to shake up public education in Los Angeles than anyone but Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. [...]

"Steve Barr is a believer that one person can change the world," Villaraigosa said. "He is absolutely passionate about transforming our schools, and has put in the blood, sweat and tears to make it happen."

Barr has never worked as a principal or a teacher. Indeed, compared to the professional educators who typically start charter schools, he doesn't know much about teaching kids. Nevertheless, Green Dot high schools have posted some promising early results.

Located in some of the region's toughest, poorest Latino and black neighborhoods, Barr's schools are rooted in a common-sense assumption: All students can learn if they are held to high expectations and taught by capable, empowered teachers in small schools.

TO understand how Barr got into the business of educating kids, you have to know the pain and guilt he feels about his dead brother, Michael.

The brothers lived a meager and unsettled childhood. Their father left shortly after Michael was born and Steve was 2. Their mother, who worked odd jobs and as an Army dental assistant, raised the boys herself. They moved frequently, landing in such places as Fond du Lac, Wis., and Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo. For a year, when Steve was 5, his mother put the boys in foster care.

"My mom was a tough lady but always on the borderline of cracking up because it was just overwhelming," Barr said. "We had the basics, but for a few years there it was really tough.... We were never incredibly hungry, but I was not unfamiliar with it."

Before Barr started high school, the family moved to California and Barr's mother made a decision that he credits with changing his life. After renting a one-bedroom apartment in San Jose, she moved the family again, this time just a few blocks into neighboring Cupertino, so her boys could attend the town's high-performing high school.

At Cupertino High, Barr came into his own. He was an average student but a star basketball player. He fell in easily with the jocks and the privileged kids of Hewlett-Packard engineers.

His brother, however, foundered. A chubby, awkward kid with ill-fitting glasses, Michael struggled to make friends. While Barr played it straight ("I didn't drink a beer until senior year and still have never done a drug stronger than tequila"), Michael got heavily into drugs.

Their lives diverged dramatically. Steve went on to a local community college and later transferred to UC Santa Barbara. Michael dropped out of high school at 16. After he was busted for drug possession, a judge essentially gave him a choice between jail and the Navy, Barr said. Michael enlisted, becoming a ship's cook.

Years later, shortly after leaving the Navy, Michael was hit by a flower truck that had run a light. One of his legs was crushed, and in the years that followed, he underwent dozens of operations in a futile effort to ease the pain. In 1992, he died of an overdose of alcohol and painkillers.

His death had a profound effect on Barr, who sees his brother's overdose as the coda to a sad life that began its downward spiral in high school. Despite being awash in funding and resources, the Cupertino campus was, Barr recalls, a segregated place. Only a select slice of students was rigorously prepared for college. Others received little attention and were dispatched into the low-skill jobs of California's booming manufacturing economy.

At a recent Green Dot staff retreat, Barr held aloft a photo of his brother in his Navy uniform.

"All this kid needed, all he really needed, was for someone to see what a great kid he was," he said, his voiced choked with emotion. "When I see our kids walking the halls today, I think about my brother and I see it's just so simple. These kids are getting attention. My mending has been Green Dot."