Imagine being at a school where 80% of the students look like you…but you’re the only one like you who is in the honors and advanced classes. That’s where this week’s guest, Carlon Howard, found himself as he readied to graduate from high school. And that experience put him on the pathway that landed him as a leader and impact-maker in educational equity.
Carlon has a passion for supporting individuals who feel stuck in cultural narratives due to a lack of equity, inclusivity, and diversity in leadership. And his organization, Equity Institute, is taking what they’ve created and teaching organizations how to develop these initiatives in their own communities.
In this episode, Carlon and I talk about doing the work in the messy gray space, why teacher pathway programs are so valuable, why schools need support outside the traditional education space, and how he built Equity Institute organically from a place of connection and decompressing.
I love Carlon’s philosophy of teaching others to do the work, rather than assuming his organization knows the answers for every situation. We need more of this in leadership roles.
Carlon is the Chief Impact Officer and Co-Founder of Equity Institute. In his role, he leads organization-wide strategic and operational planning, ensuring EI’s vision is realized through clear prioritization and high-impact operational execution. In addition to helping launch the Equity Institute, he also co-founded re*generation (formerly EduLeaders of Color R.I.). Now an initiative of the Equity Institute, re*generation hosts monthly meetups designed to support education leaders from underrepresented backgrounds.
Before entering his current role with Equity Institute, Carlon was executive director of Breakthrough Providence, served as a City Year AmeriCorps member and Impact Manager, was a classroom teacher, and was a policy fellow for a former Colorado Senator. He graduated from the University of Georgia with undergraduate degrees in criminal justice and political science and completed his graduate degree in education from Rhode Island College. He also earned a graduate certificate in nonprofit management and leadership from the Institute of Nonprofit Practice, in affiliation with Tufts University's Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life. Additionally, he completed formal training as a leadership and performance coach. Outside of his full-time work, Carlon is an adjunct instructor at College Unbound.
