Great Douglas McGray article in the May 11th issue of The New Yorker on Steve Barr of Green Dot, the charter school group in Los Angeles. Only the abstract’s online now but it’s worth the $4.99. Barr’s got an aggressive model that takes over chronically failing high schools in neighborhoods like Watts (he gets staff support by allowing unions but not tenure) and has attracted the support of Ramone Cortines, L.A. Superintendent, A.F.T.’s Randy Weingarten, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who summoned Barr to Washington and told him, “You seem to have cracked the code.”

Update: here’s the link to the full article.