Editor’s note: This testimony was given by Fordham Institute trustee Ian Rowe on January 20, 2022, to the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on the Economy as part of a hearing titled “Race, Ethnicity and the Economy: How Improving Economic Opportunity Benefits All.” The statement was first published in a similar format as the one presented here by the American Enterprise Institute.
To Chairman Himes, Ranking member Steil, and the distinguished members of the House Select Committee on the Economy, good morning. My name is Ian Rowe.
I submit my testimony today as a proud product of the New York City public school system kindergarten through twelfth grade, and a graduate of Brooklyn Tech High School, Cornell University College of Engineering, and Harvard Business School. I am the founder and CEO of Vertex Partnership Academies, a new network of character-based, International Baccalaureate high schools, with the first campus to open in the Bronx in 2022. For the past ten years, I was CEO of a non-profit network of public charter elementary and middle schools in the heart of the South Bronx and the Lower East Side of Manhattan. We educated more than 2,000 students—primarily low-income, Black, and Hispanic kids. We had nearly 5,000 families on our waiting list.
Many of our parents understand that racial disparities exist, but they know those disparities do not have to be destiny for their kids. These parents were given the power to choose our schools because they wanted their children to develop the skills and habits to become agents of their own uplift and build a better life, even in the face of structural barriers. In District 8 in the South Bronx, of the nearly 2,000 public school students beginning high school in the South Bronx in 2015, only 2 percent graduated ready for college four years later. That means 98 percent of students either dropped out of high school before completing their senior year or they did earn their high school diploma but still needed remediation in math and reading—if they did go to college.
We cannot ignore that the racial disparities we are seeking to close originated long before they show up for adults as statistical gaps in financial wealth, home ownership, or crime. In this district, if only 2 percent of mostly Black and Brown kids are graduating from high school capable of doing even basic reading and math, why would we reasonably expect these same kids as adults to be flourishing in higher education and the workplace, starting businesses, getting married, having children within marriage, or any of the other behaviors that typically mark passage into young adulthood and likely entry into the middle class or beyond?
I see young people today trapped between two dominant narratives. The first is what I call blame the system, the belief that America is an oppressive nation; that every institution is steeped in racism; that there is a white supremacist lurking on every corner; that capitalism itself is evil; that these systems are so rigged and discriminatory that the individual is powerless and only massive government intervention is the solution.
The second narrative I call blame the victim, the idea that America is full of opportunity, and that if you are not successful, then it must be your fault. You have some pathology that is the cause of your failure. You should have pulled yourself up by your own bootstraps.
Both of these narratives are wrong and rob young people of agency, the sense that they can control their own destiny. If we want to help young people of all races achieve the American Dream, I propose a new framework, FREE, based on encouraging young people to embrace four pillars—family, religion, education, and entrepreneurship—a revitalization of the four local, mediating institutions that drive human flourishing.
Family is helping young people understand the importance of forming strong families. Here we should teach decision making, that if you finish your education, get a full-time job of any kind so you learn the dignity and responsibility of work, and then if you have children, marriage first, data shows that 97 percent of millennials avoid poverty.
R is religion and the personal faith commitment that can be an anchor in your life.
E is for education and ensuring that every parent has the right to choose the education that best meets their child’s needs. School choice is fundamental.
And the final E is entrepreneurship, on the ways that young people can access capital, build wealth.
To see how these FREE pillars of family, religion, education, and entrepreneurship interact, consider that the Federal Reserve’s 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances gap between Black and White Americans at the median—the middle household in each community—was $164,100. For some, this gap is vibrant proof of a permanent and insurmountable legacy of racial discrimination.
Yet the same 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances shows that when education and family structure are considered, on an absolute basis, the median net worth of two-parent, college-educated Black households is nearly $220,000, and about $160,000 more than that of the typical White, single-parent household. The wealth gap is completely reversed.
Figure 1. Median net worth of two-parent Black households versus single-parent White households with children
Source: Federal Reserve 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances. Note: Households headed by “widowed” parent were excluded from analyses.
We have a moral imperative to encourage young people of all races to adopt a new cultural norm around family, religion, education, and entrepreneurship. I look forward to discussing it in more detail.
