Joseph McDonald
Professor of Teaching and Learning
Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development - New York University
About:
Joe McDonald is Professor of Teaching and Learning at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University. He is the author or co-author of seven books about schooling and teaching – including Going to Scale with New School Designs: Reinventing High School (Teachers College Press, 2009), and The Power of Protocols (Teachers College Press, 2007). He is currently completing a research project funded by the Annenberg and Spencer Foundations on the last decade of school reform in five American Cities, and is Director of the Metro Learning Communities Project at Steinhardt's Metropolitan Center for Urban Education.
McDonald has been one of the leaders of NYU’s school partnership project which involves close relationships with schools in the Lower East Side, East Harlem, and the South Bronx. With NYU Professors Glynda Hull and David Velleman, he leads the NYU EXCEL Academy for aspiring college students from the South Bronx.
McDonald is a member of NYU’s English Education faculty, and was for many years a high school English teacher as well as a high school principal. He is co-founder of University Neighborhood High School on the Lower East Side, and NYU liaison to Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School in the South Bronx. He has been Co-editor of the Series on School Reform at Teachers College Press since 1994. He is currently a consultant to the Partnership for Innovation in Compensation for Charter Schools at New York’s Center for Educational Innovation, a member of the Research Advisory Council of the Chicago Public Education Fund, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Leadership Institute for Congregational Schools.
McDonald has a Doctorate in Education and Master of Arts in Teaching English from Harvard University, as well as a Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude degree in English from the University of Scranton. Before coming to NYU, he taught at Brown University where he led the teacher education program in English and served as the first Director of Research at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, as well as Senior Researcher for the Coalition of Essential Schools. McDonald has been at NYU/Steinhardt since 1998, and has served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and also as Associate Dean for Community and Global Initiatives.
