Meet the speakers
Ian Rowe – Panelist
Ian Rowe is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on poverty studies, family formation, and adoption. Concurrently, Mr. Rowe is the CEO of Public Prep, the nation’s first nonprofit network to develop tuition-free pre-K and single-sex elementary and middle public schools. He is also a senior visiting fellow at the Thomas Fordham Institute and the chairman of the board of Spence-Chapin, a nonprofit adoption services organization.
Before joining Public Prep, Mr. Rowe was deputy director of postsecondary success at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, senior vice president of strategic partnerships and public affairs at MTV, director of strategy and performance measurement at the USA Freedom Corps office in the White House, and cofounder and president of Third Millennium Media. Mr. Rowe also joined Teach for America in its early days.
Mr. Rowe is also the recipient of numerous fellowships and has been an Echoing Green Fellow, a Harvard Business School Social Enterprise Initiative Fellow, and a Pahara-Aspen Fellow. His many awards include two Emmys, one for MTV’s “Think HIV: This Is Me” and the other for think.mtv.com.
He has an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was the first black editor-in-chief of The Harbus, the Harvard Business School newspaper; a BS in computer science engineering from Cornell University; and a diploma in electrical engineering from Brooklyn Technical High School (Brooklyn Tech), one of New York City’s elite public schools, which specializes in science, technology, and mathematics.
Myles Mendoza – Panelist
Myles Mendoza is the President of Empower Illinois (EI), a 501c3 public charity with a a mission to expand quality educational options for low-income and working-class families of Illinois.
At EI, Myles’s team passed legislation that improves the identification of low-income gifted children, legislation that allows kids to advance at their level of competency, and a tax credit for teachers’ expenses on supplies.
Myles led the development of a bipartisan, 400 member, education coalition including 53 labor organizations; the coalition made history in 2017 with the passage of a tax credit scholarship (TCS) program. The law provides donors a 75% tax credit on contributions to authorized K-13 scholarship granting organizations and has the highest scholarship-funding cap ($100 million) of any first-time program and individual scholarships that are as high as $26,000. EI created a coalition that comprises 91% of all Illinois private schools and developed infrastructure to administer scholarships; the policy resulted in $100,000,000 raised since 2018.
Prior to Empower Illinois, Myles developed multiple organizations from the ground up; as an executive at Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) he supported the creation of 12 state chapter offices nationwide. Myles supported an Aspen-based philanthropist to develop edXchange, a Colorado-based education shared space which fosters joint ventures among education policy organizations in Colorado. He supported the creation of a fund for Lurie Children’s Hospital’s Psychiatric Summer Program, developed the Colorado Children’s Hospital adolescent HIV/AIDS program, and was a member of the founding executive team at the Denver Scholarship Foundation that raised $62,000,000 in college scholarships for low-income students in Denver.
Barry Malkin – Panelist
Barry F. Malkin is currently the CEO of Carnegie Learning, one of the leading providers of mathematics and literacy curriculum in the U.S. and a pioneer in the area of adaptive learning. Carnegie Learning serves over 1,000,000 students nationwide and has been in existence for more than 20 years. Carnegie Learning’s technology is seen as leading edge and among the most advanced forms of competency based personalized learning on the market. Mr. Malkin has been an active operator, investor and advisor to the educational services sector for over 20 years.
Prior to assuming the role with Carnegie Learning, Mr. Malkin was Head of Corporate Development and Strategy at Apollo Education Group. Mr. Malkin joined Apollo Group in June 2009, heading corporate development and strategy for one of the world’s largest educational services companies. Mr. Malkin’s activities included overseeing all domestic and international acquisition and investment activity, global strategy, integration services, and strategic partnerships across Apollo and its subsidiary companies including Apollo Global. Mr. Malkin’s activities included, among others, the acquisition of BPP Holdings, Apollo Group’s largest acquisition to date and its first foray into the professional education sector; the development of a new post secondary education joint venture in India with the Hindustan Times, and the establishment of new lines of businesses and products.
Beth Feeley – Moderator
Beth Feeley is a freelance writer and editor for various non-profit organizations, including The Woodson Center, serving most recently as launch director for its “1776” effort. Previously, Beth worked in consulting and public relations for Hill and Knowlton and Arthur Andersen for a variety of Fortune 500 companies and as Editor at The Policy Circle, a grassroots network of 300 women’s policy discussion groups in 40 states across the country and of which Beth is an original group co-leader and member. Her work has been published in National Review Online and The Federalist.
Beth also runs a local civic organization, New Trier Neighbors, which promotes common sense policies in local government and schools through special events, regular email updates and targeted informational campaigns.
Beth lives in the north suburbs of Chicago with her husband and three children. She is a graduate of Miami University of Ohio (B.A.) and Northwestern University (M.S.).