# Cultivating Agency, Character, and Citizenship: A Visit to Vertex Partnership Academies Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx-XbXDlM08 Recap page: https://rapidrecap.app/video/Yx-XbXDlM08 Generated: 2026-02-18T18:35:47.533+00:00 --- ## Quick Overview Ian Row, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and co-founder of Vertex Partnership Academies, argues that cultivating a sense of agency—the ability to control one's destiny guided by moral discernment—is the critical missing element in modern education, contrasting it with debilitating narratives of 'blame the system' and 'blame the victim.' **Key Points:** - Vertex Partnership Academies integrates academic rigor with character formation, focusing on the four cardinal virtues: courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. - Row defines agency as 'the force of your free will guided by moral discernment,' which is instilled through daily recitations of 'I statements,' such as 'I reject victimhood' for courage. - The school teaches the 'success sequence' (education, work, marriage, children in that order) which data shows leads 97% of millennials who follow it to avoid poverty. - Vertex faced a lawsuit from the teachers union attempting to block its opening in August 2022, but a judge threw out the case on August 16th, allowing the school to graduate its inaugural class accepted to top universities. - Row advocates for teaching history 'warts and all,' countering narratives like the 1619 Project with resources like '1776 Unites' to provide a full story, including the context of Black Wall Street before the Tulsa Massacre. - A five-point plan for scaling educational change includes eliminating barriers to school choice, teaching the success sequence as a probabilities class, focusing on the 'distance to 100' achievement metric over racial gaps, and expanding content-rich curricula. **Context:** The discussion centers around Ian Row, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and co-founder of Vertex Partnership Academies, a network of public charter high schools launched in the Bronx in 2022. Row's philosophy, detailed in his book Agency, centers on empowering young Americans with a sense of control over their fate by providing an alternative to victimhood narratives, emphasizing moral formation alongside academic excellence. ## Detailed Analysis Ian Row discusses how Vertex Partnership Academies embodies his philosophy that young people must develop agency, defined as free will guided by moral discernment, to lead self-determined lives. He argues that education is currently polarized between the 'blame the system' narrative, which fosters learned helplessness, and the 'blame the victim' narrative, which ignores structural issues. Vertex combats this by focusing on character formation rooted in the four cardinal virtues (courage, justice, temperance, wisdom), recited daily by students via 'I statements' like 'I reject victimhood.' Row recounts his personal moment of agency when he successfully convinced his parents to let him stay at his integrated junior high school despite societal pressure to leave, linking this experience to his decision to build institutions like Vertex. He highlights the school's success, noting that its inaugural graduating class received millions in scholarships, which would not have happened had the teachers union succeeded in its lawsuit to stop the school's opening. Furthermore, Row details the FREE acronym (Family, Religion, Education, Entrepreneurship) as pillars of human flourishing; Family education includes teaching the 'success sequence' (education, work, marriage, children) which data shows helps 97% of millennials avoid poverty, a concept he advocates teaching descriptively rather than prescriptively to respect student decision-making. Regarding history, Row champions teaching the whole story, opposing both sanitized patriotism and narratives that claim America was founded solely as a 'slaveocracy,' advocating for curricula like '1776 Unites' that contextualize events like the Tulsa Massacre within narratives of Black achievement like Black Wall Street. Finally, Row outlines five necessary changes for K-12 education scale, including removing charter school caps, teaching the success sequence, shifting focus from racial achievement gaps to the 'distance to 100' (distance from current performance to excellence), and expanding content-rich curricula. ### Vertex Philosophy and Agency - Agency is defined as free will guided by moral discernment - Moral formation occurs through reciting the four cardinal virtues (courage, justice, temperance, wisdom) daily - Students commit to community standards through public affirmations like 'I reject victimhood.' ### The Counter-Narratives - Row contrasts the disempowering meta-narratives of 'blame the system' and 'blame the victim' with his empowering concept of agency - These narratives suck the energy out of the idea that one can control their destiny - The speaker relates his childhood decision to stay at his school as his personal 'coming of agency' moment. ### The FREE Pillars of Flourishing - The pillars are Family, Religion, Education, and Entrepreneurship - Family instruction includes the data-supported 'success sequence' (education, work, marriage, children) which 97% of millennials following it avoid poverty - Religion provides a moral code and community - Education involves choosing great schools - Entrepreneurship fosters a problem-solving mindset. ### Challenges and Institutional Building - Vertex faced a lawsuit from the teachers union in 2022 which was dismissed just before opening - The school operates as a public charter school with freedom over curriculum and compensation, distinguishing it from traditional district schools - Row notes that many positive Vertex practices, like virtue recitation, can be adopted by any school. ### Teaching History and Civics - Row rejects selectively negative historical narratives like the 1619 Project, advocating for teaching history 'warts and all' - He promotes the '1776 Unites' curriculum which contextualizes horrific events like the Tulsa Massacre within the context of Black achievement like Black Wall Street - Students recite the Preamble to the Constitution daily to emphasize civic responsibility. ### Five Changes for Educational Scale - Eliminate barriers to school choice nationwide by removing charter caps and expanding voucher programs - Teach the success sequence as a probabilities class in middle and postsecondary schools - Focus on the 'distance to 100' gap rather than racial achievement gaps to avoid universal mediocrity - Expand content-rich curricula, especially in civics and history, moving away from content-agnostic methods like 'balanced literacy.'