A "poverty trap" is how Brian Olson describes the often harsh relationship between money and education in the U.S. "In our cities the best determinant of how a kid is going to do in school is the color of his skin and the income of his family," says Olson, a co-founder of Viking Global Investors. "If you’re poor, you’ll do poorly in school; and if you do poorly in school, you’ll probably be poor."
The 42-year-old Olson is on a mission to help halt this self-perpetuating cycle. In 2005 he joined the board of George Jackson Academy, a private middle school in New York’s East Village neighborhood that caters...