Agency, Updated Edition: The Four Point Plan (F.R.E.E.) for ALL Children to Overcome the Victimhood Narrative and Discover Their Pathway to Power

Some children thrive where others do not. Why? Are there personal behaviors and institutional supports that make a difference in helping young people chart a course for their futures? Agency answers with a loud and clear “yes!”

This book describes the FREE framework, four pillars that can uplift every young person as they make the passage into adulthood: Family, Religion, Education, and Entrepreneurship.

With this framework in place, children are empowered to develop agency, which Ian V. Rowe defines as the force of one’s free will, guided by moral discernment. 

Rowe champions a game plan for creating new agents of agency and shows them the path that will set them FREE. Revised and expanded, this updated edition includes a new introduction and supplementary material, including a study guide for educators, sample lesson plans, and a student self-assessment.

Ian V. Rowe is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on education and upward mobility, family formation, and adoption. Mr. Rowe is the cofounder and CEO of Vertex Partnership Academies, a new network of character-based, International Baccalaureate public charter high schools opening in the Bronx in 2022 and is the chairman of the board for Spence-Chapin, a nonprofit adoption services organization that provides adoption and adoption support services. Rowe is a senior visiting fellow at the Woodson Center and a writer for the 1776 Unites Campaign. He is a trustee at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a senior advisor for the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR For All), Parents Defending Education, and the National Summer School Initiative (NSSI).

Mr. Rowe is widely published and quoted in the popular press, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, C-SPAN, the New York Post, the Washington Examiner, Education Week, and Education Next. In addition to serving ten years as CEO of Public Prep, a nonprofit network of public charter schools based in the South Bronx and Lower East Side of Manhattan, he was deputy director of postsecondary success at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Rowe won two public service Emmys while serving as the senior vice president of strategic partnerships and public affairs at MTV. He was the director of the strategy and performance measurement at the USA Freedom Corps office in the White House and cofounder and president of Third Millennium Media. In its early days, Mr. Rowe was also a senior staff member for Teach For America.

After receiving a high school diploma in electrical engineering from Brooklyn Technical High School, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science Engineering from Cornell University’s College of Engineering. He earned an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was the first black editor-In-chief of the Harbus, the Harvard Business School newspaper. Serving as an elected school board member, he resides in Pelham, New York, with his wife and two children.