Tyrone C. Howard, PhD
Co-Director
Tyrone C. Howard is the Pritzker Family Endowed Chair in the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. He is the director of the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children & Families, the UCLA Black Male Institute, and the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools. Professor Howard’s research examines race, culture, and educational equity. A native and former classroom teacher of Compton, CA, Professor Howard was named the recipient of the 2015 UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award, which is the university’s highest and most distinguished award for teaching excellence. Professor Howard was named an AERA Fellow in 2018, and during the last five years, Dr. Howard, the author of 6 books, and countless other publications, has been listed by Education Week as one of the most influential scholars in the nation informing educational policy, practice and reform.
Dr. Howard hopes for the UCLA Pritzker Center to work with UCLA and community partners to create system and policy change for our most vulnerable populations in Los Angeles County. The challenges that youth in care face are multifaceted and require multidisciplinary, caring, and systemic interventions, and the Center can play an instrumental role in eradicating the need for foster care. Under his leadership, he envisions the Center supporting children by identifying and utilizing accessible pathways to educational success, playing a preventive role in supporting families, and offering culturally responsive interventions to support families currently in care.
Dr. Howard is a product of Compton, CA. In addition to being a competitive person, and huge sports fan, he is also a proud father of four amazing young people. He and his wife are both former classroom teachers in the Compton Unified School District. In fact, his wife’s first teaching assignment was in the same Kindergarten school and classroom where Dr. Howard attended as a Kindergartner.