Michael Barber

Sir Michael Barber is the Founding Director of the US Education Delivery Institute, which is designed explicitly tohelp U.S. state education systems strengthen their capacity to deliver results. The US Education Delivery Institute is unique among U.S. nonprofits in that it focuses on exclusively on how to get things done, rather than what to do. Barber is an Expert Partner in McKinsey and Company's Global Public Sector Practice and head of its Global Education Practice. He works on major...See more

Sir Michael Barber is the Founding Director of the US Education Delivery Institute, which is designed explicitly tohelp U.S. state education systems strengthen their capacity to deliver results. The US Education Delivery Institute is unique among U.S. nonprofits in that it focuses on exclusively on how to get things done, rather than what to do. Barber is an Expert Partner in McKinsey and Company's Global Public Sector Practice and head of its Global Education Practice. He works on major challenges of performance, organization, and reform in government and the public services, especially education, around the world. He is coauthor of the widely read international benchmarking study How the World's Best Performing School Systems Come Out on Top (Barber & Mourshed, 2007). Prior to joining McKinsey, Barber was (from 2001) Chief Adviser on Delivery to the British prime minister, Tony Blair. As head of the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit, he was responsible for the oversight of implementation of the prime minister's priority programs in health, education, transport, policing, the criminal justice system, and asylum/immigration. The approach to delivery he developed is widely seen as constructive and innovative and has been described by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as "the frontier" of performance management in government. His (2008) book about this experience-Instruction to Deliver: Fighting to Reform Britain's Public Services-was described by the Financial Times as "one of the best books written on British government for many years" (Bogdanor, 2007, para. 12) and has been read by political leaders on five continents. Between 1997 and 2001, Barber was Chief Adviser to the Secretary of State for Education on School Standards. Prior to joining government, he was a professor at the Institute of Education, University of London. His other major publications include The Learning Game: Arguments for an Education Revolution (1997), How to Do the Impossible: A Guide for Politicians With a Passion for Education (1997), and The Virtue of Accountability (Boston University 2005). His advice on public policy, especially education, has been sought by governments in over 20 countries, including Australia, the USA, Russia, Estonia, Chile, and Hong Kong, and by major international organizations, including the Organization of Economic Co-Operation and Development, The World Bank, and the IMF. He is an Honorary Doctor at the Universities of Exeter, Nottingham, Trent, and Wolverhampton and a Visiting Professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, and the Institute of Education, University of London. See less