Dale McDonald

Dale McDonald, Ph.D., is the Director of Public Policy and Educational Research for the National Catholic Educational Association in Washington, DC. In that capacity, she serves NCEA and its members in policy analysis and advocacy roles regarding the national education policy issues impacting Catholic schools.

Prior to joining NCEA, Sr. McDonald was director of the Catholic School Leadership Program in the Boston College Graduate School of Education. Previously, she served as the president of the Sisters of Presentation (New York), a congregation of women religious engaged in education, pastoral care and social services. Other positions held by Sr. McDonald include principal and teacher in several schools in the Archdiocese of New York and coordinator of the Executive Internship Program, for the Human Resources Administration of the City of New York.

Sr. McDonald has been a presenter at conferences and workshops on educational policy issues at Boston College, University of San Francisco, University of Dayton, Spalding University, as well as the annual conventions of the National Catholic Educational Association and other professional organizations. She has served on several committees convened by the White House, U.S. Department of Education, the National Center for Education Statistics, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and other national education associations, and testified at Congressional hearings on private school issues.

She edited Partners for Justice: Catholic Schools and School Choice, publishes the NCEA Annual Statistical Report on Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools, is a regular political columnist for Momentum, and has been published in several journals and contributed to the Handbook of Research on Catholic Education and the Encyclopedia of American Catholic Education.

Sr. McDonald has a Ph.D. in Educational Administration from Boston College. She also received a M.S. in Educational Administration from Pace University, an M.A. in American History from Fordham University and a B.S. in Elementary Education from Fordham.

Established in 1904, the NCEA is the largest private professional education organization in the world, representing 200,000 Catholic educators serving 7.6 million students in Catholic elementary and secondary schools, in religious education programs, in seminaries and in colleges and universities.