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Free-Choice Shtik. A former assistant dean at Columbia University's engineering school, Barr arrived at Dalton with a dim view of "orthodox" progressive education's emphasis on emotional development. Bumptious and bright, by turns pompous and ingenuous, Barr implemented the trustees' decisions to make Dalton's all-girl high school coed and to more than double the size of the school, to 1,000. The expansion permitted seven kinds of science, ten languages, 20 English courses. "My shtik" Barr said, "is freedom of choice for the students whenever possible...
Though Barr was nominally opposed to "the crude lash of competition," he sent his own four sons to the fiercely competitive Horace Mann School, and chipped away at Dalton's progressivism by installing tests to supplement written evaluations of students. In an opinionated article several years ago, he flayed teen-age sex ("robots in heat") and roasted permissive parents. "The trouble with many children," he declared, "is that their fathers are mothers and their mothers are sisters...
Such notions, though, did Barr no good in the new era of the Woodstock Nation and its admiring Dalton parents. As one Dalton mother said of her nine-year-old, "he's not our son; he's our friend." Barr was so out of it that he even tried to ban blue jeans and long hair on boys. While teaching a course on Marxism, he actually started wearing an American-flag pin on his lapel. When Barr began referring to staying after school as "detention," one father growled, "Will the children be allowed one phone call to their...
...weeks ago, a traumatic P.T.A. meeting ensued. Dr. Hofer, who once staged drug seminars at Dalton, was more or less accused of condoning pot for students. His defenders accused Barr of keeping black and Puerto Rican students out of the school. When Barr wandered in, his mawkish remarks about his uncertain future at the school drew catcalls ("Where'd you leave Checkers?"). One of his defenders received a Nazi salute. The combatants almost reeled back to their chauffeured limousines double-parked outside the school...
...usually keeps things clean in union elections. Although the results are binding on no one, the parents voted 435 to 300 against Hofer. Mercifully, spring vacation began the next day. Barr vanished to heal his wounds on a two-week Caribbean cruise. But with national politics in a lull, Dalton's activist parents are sure to resume their new recreation of baiting or boosting Barr when the beleaguered headmaster returns...