A 2023 Black Conservative Summit discussion about education in urban areas made Pastor TJ Grooms of New Beginnings Church and CEO of Vertex Partnership Academies, Ian Rowe, think about establishing an all-boys school for Black youth to promote 'Kingdoms culture' and drop the poverty rate.
Establishing All-Boys School For Black Youth
On Friday, Mar. 24, participants in a panel discussion at the 2023 Black Conservative Conference in Chicago, Illinois, emphasized the importance of implementing school reform in urban regions nationwide. Christian Post reported that Pastor TJ Grooms and CEO Ian Rowe believe that schools need to focus primarily on young black men to promote family values in the generation that comes after them.
Rowe began the discussion by citing some disheartening statistics. He stated that out of the nearly 41,000 black women who became pregnant in New York City in 2019, approximately 21,000 pregnancies ended in abortion, while the remaining 20,000 pregnancies resulted in live births. Rowe revealed that 70% of black children were born in New York City to parents who were not married. He asserted that an all-boys school could assist young men in considering their roles as fathers, husbands, and responsible parents. It is reportedly essential to run good schools and have them educate robust maths, science, reading, and everything else a school should do.
Moreover, Grooms, an assistant pastor at New Beginnings Church in Chicago, expressed the desire of his church to establish an all-boys Christian school for students in grades first through eighth. The pastor asserted that people must make a concentrated effort to win these young men and prepare them to be the heads of their families, knowing the significance of manhood, not when they are teenagers, but when they are still developing.
Also, Grooms outlined the goals he has for his school and promised that pupils will be encouraged to embrace what he referred to as "one culture that supersedes all cultures, and that's the Kingdom's culture."
On the other hand, Rowe provided more statistical evidence to support his statement that "the poverty rate for black married couples has been in single digits for as long as the data has been gathered."
He presented a path to success that will keep young people out of poverty. The first step on this path is for young people to "complete their education" before moving on to "employment, relationships, marriage, and ultimately children." Rowe also noted that a school that only admitted male students would be the place to discuss the anticipated benefits or repercussions of making these selections without knowing what is truly possible in their lives.
Furthermore, Rowe and Grooms proposed that public charter and faith-based all-boys schools should go beyond bridging the achievement gap between black and white students. "Closing the gap means universal mediocrity," Rowe added.
Poverty on Black People
According to Brooking, Black-white inequality and racial injustice have been at the forefront for the past year. These issues include policing, criminal justice, job market discrimination, educational inequality, social capital inequality, and the racial wealth gap.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness stated that there is a strong connection between race and low income, and poverty in the United States. The percentage of black Americans who live below the poverty line, 21%, places them in second place among all racial groupings, behind only the Native American population, which has a poverty rate of 25%. African-American households, in particular, have barely ten cents worth of wealth for every dollar white families hold.
A person experiencing poverty will likely be unable to afford necessary expenses such as food, health care costs, and housing, making it a key predictor of homelessness. Hence, the overrepresentation of people of African descent among those living in poverty is a direct cause of the latter group's overrepresentation in the homeless population.
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