Barbara McCloud serves as Senior Associate, Leadership Programs at the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL).  In that capacity, she works on a variety of IEL leadership initiatives and programs.  McCloud is recognized for her work in creating, developing, and implementing a variety of leadership development programs for school leaders (including school board members, superintendents, principals, and teachers), policymakers, elected officials, and others.  Her expertise includes: conceptualization, design, and management of tailored professional development and training activities; convening of diverse forums; meeting facilitation; research and analysis; writing and public speaking. 

McCloud has served as the Director of the School Leadership Learning Community, a network of individuals across the country implementing U.S. Department of Education-funded  professional development programs for principals and aspiring principals in high-need, low-performing school districts.  Prior to that, she served as Director of Superintendents Prepared (SP), a nationally recognized year-long leadership development program for persons aspiring to the urban superintendency.  Her previous positions at IEL have included Associate Director of the Education Policy Fellowship Program (EPFP), a year-long national leadership and policy development program for mid-career professionals.  She was also Director, Superintendents Roundtable, a national staff development program for school leaders.  

McCloud is former Director, Education Program Director at the prestigious Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington D.C. think tank.  She has served as Special Assistant, Office of the U.S. Secretary of Education, and as Special Assistant to the Deputy Director of the National Institute of Education (now the Institute of Education Sciences in the United States Department of Education).   McCloud lectures on education issues, particularly those related to school governance and urban education, and she co-authored, among other publications, School Boards: Strengthening Grass Roots Leadership; Powerful Reforms with Shallow Roots: Improving America’s Urban Schools; and “Preparing and Supporting Diverse, Culturally Competent Leaders: Practice and Policy Considerations.”  A former teacher, board of education member and city planner in East Orange, New Jersey, she was distinguished previously as the youngest school board president in the United States.

B.A. and M.A.T, Brown University; Ph.D., Ohio State University.