TEACHING MARRIAGE PROVEN TO BOOST SOCIAL MOBILITY!

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Ian Rowe is one of those gifted educators who has discovered how to genuinely transform the lives of the poorest communities through opportunity and aspiration. And, as you’ve probably guessed, his remarkable success is built around marriage and the values connected with it. You can watch our full discussion online here. Please share this important conversation widely with your friends and networks.

Ian, the founder of Vertex Academies in the Bronx, New York, provides compelling evidence grounded in robust data showing how stable marriages offer children the most reliable route out of poverty. Central to his approach is the “success sequence” – education, employment, marriage, and then parenthood – which has been proven to significantly lift young people from poverty into the middle class and beyond. Ian summarises simply: “The data is overwhelming”.

Crucially, Ian stresses that teaching traditional virtues and marriage values is not mere ideology, but a practical necessity for genuine social mobility. His academies intentionally embed virtues such as courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom into everyday school life. Ian describes how students daily affirm statements like, “I reject victimhood and boldly persevere even in times of uncertainty and struggle”, empowering them with a robust sense of personal agency.

Ian’s approach sharply contrasts with what I hear from the thousands of our supporters I meet up and down the country, many of whom are teachers and parents, who tell me schools are ready to teach just about anything – except marriage and related values. He highlights the hypocrisy of educational gatekeepers who discourage promoting these tested virtues, even though their own children benefit from precisely these values. Ian vividly recalls parents from disadvantaged backgrounds expressing their gratitude: “Thank God someone is teaching my children these things”.

Ian also highlights research showing the transformative effect that growing up in neighbourhoods with high concentrations of married, two-parent households has on children, irrespective of their personal family circumstances. The success factors Ian identifies – strong family structures, religious communities, and quality education –are not new; they have simply been neglected in favour of an ideology that fails our children.

At C4M, we believe it’s time to stop selling our children a lie. Our education system must once again champion the proven virtues that build a prosperous, stable society – founded on lifelong, monogamous man-woman marriage. It just works.