Steve Barr (educator)

Steve Barr (1959) is an educator and activist best known as the founder of Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school organization in Los Angeles, CA. Barr is also the founder of Future is Now Schools, a non-profit school organization that works on reforming schools from within.

Early life and education

Steve Barr was born in San Mateo, California in 1959. His father left the family when Barr was two years old. Barr and his younger brother were raised by a single mother. Barr spent his early childhood in Monterey, California where his mother worked as a dental assistant and as a cocktail waitress. At the age of six, Barr and his younger brother were placed in foster care for a year. In 1973, Barr's family moved to Cupertino, California where he and his brother attended Cupertino High School. At Cupertino High, Barr played on the basketball team and was elected student body president.

He later attended De Anza college and U.C. Santa Barbara where he majored in Political Science. During this time, Barr worked at United Parcel Service and was active in the Teamster's Union. While still in college, Barr started the College Democrats at UCSB and interned for then-governor Jerry Brown. Barr also, while a Junior at UCSB, headed a campaign for Jack O'Connell for California State Assembly. O'Connell won in a big upset and was later elected as California Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Early professional life

Upon graduation, Barr was hired as an advance man by the Olympic Committee for the cross-country 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games Torch Relay. Barr documented his travels in a memoir titled The Flame, an Unlikely Patriot Finds a Country to Love, published by William Morrow (1987). During this time, Barr also joined the national staff of Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado's presidential run. Barr also joined the staff of Rep. Geraldine Ferraro's Vice Presidential run in 1984. In addition, Barr worked for Gov. Michael Dukakis' run for president in 1988. While involved in politics, Barr maintained a presence as a writer for Sport Magazine, MAC World, and later George Magazine (Online). He also worked as a fundraiser for the California Democratic Party and its then-chairman, Gov. Jerry Brown. While at the Democratic Party, Barr started an urban public-service voter registration drive aimed at immigrant populations in San Francisco and Los Angeles called the Bonaface Project. Barr led a group of Democratic activists and college students at building an after-school project and neighborhood center at St. Bonaface Catholic Church in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco, CA. During that time, Barr met Jeff Ayeroff, head of Virgin Records and founder of Rock the Vote.

Rock the Vote years

When Barr was 30 years old in 1990, Jeff Ayeroff of Virgin Records, approached him to help with a youth-empowerment voter-registration project called Rock the Vote. Rock the Vote's aim was to empower 18- to 24-year-olds by encouraging voter-registration to fight censorship. Rock the Vote formed a close alliance with members of the music industry, radio stations, MTV and artists. Barr, Berverly Lund and Jody Utal were given the title of Co-Founders by the Rock the Vote board of directors in 1991. After reading the book Why Americans don't Vote, by Richard Cloward and Francis Fox Piven, Barr latched on to the importance of the languishing Motor Voter Bill legislation to remove road-blocks to voter registration for young people and working poor by allowing voter registration upon driver's license applications and other public services. Barr and Rock the Vote partnered with a coalition that included the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, Calpirg and Project Vote. Barr and Rock the Vote partnered with MTV president Judy McGrath and recruited artists such as REM, Lenny Kravitz, Queen Latifah, Ice T, The Ramones, Jane's Addiction and many others. They generated over a million post-cards that supported the Motor Voter Bill Legislation. Barr and the coalition got senate and house approval. It was then vetoed by then-president George H. W. Bush during his campaign against Bill Clinton in 1992. Gov. Bill Clinton championed the legislation during the hard-fought presidential campaign. Upon being elected to president in 1993, Clinton signed the Voter Registration Act of 1992 into law. Barr left Rock the Vote in 1993, after which he worked for various television endeavors including a show called A Call to Action on the Disney Channel. Barr was also a correspondent on a show called the Crusaders, another Disney-produced news-show which was nationally syndicated.

Green Dot Public Schools

Barr met education-activist and founder of Netflix Reed Hastings and Don Shalvey, the founder of California's first charter school, the San Carlos Learning Center, in Northern California. At an event in 1997, President Bill Clinton announced a federally funded public charter school-grant program. As a result, Barr founded his flagship organization Green Dot Public Schools and opened his first charter high school, Animo Leadership High School in Lennox, CA in 2000. He later opened subsequent schools including Animo Inglewood in 2002 and Animo Oscar de la Hoya in Boyle Heights in 2004. By the end of Barr's involvement at Green Dot, he had 20 high schools under his auspice. Barr left Green Dot in 2009.