Lawrence C. Gloeckler is the Executive Director of the Special Education Institute at the International Center for Leadership in Education. He also serves as Senior Policy Advisor at the Governor James B. Hunt Institute for Education Leadership and Policy at the University of North Carolina.

From 1989-2003, Larry was Deputy Commissioner for the New York State Education Department. In this role, he served as both State Director of Special Education and State Director of Vocational Rehabilitation as well as being responsible for administering the state's Independent Living Program. He has spoken throughout the country about issues regarding services to people with disabilities and about performance-based accountability in government.

Larry served on the 2002 IDEA Reauthorization Joint Work Group of the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers.

Larry began his career in education as a teacher of students with mental retardation. He has also served as a Special Education Coordinator at the local level. He has taught special education at both the graduate and undergraduate levels at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York.

Larry was a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of State Directors of Special Education for five years. He also served as chair of the Interagency Relations Committee of the Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation.

Larry served on the National Panel of Experts to develop standards for transition programs for the National Rehabilitation Accreditation Commission and co-authored a monograph on Transition from School to Work and Community Services. In August 1998, his office received an award from the Council of State Governments for its exemplary State Management Program and was featured in Managing for Success: A Profile of State Government for the 21st Century.

In November 1999, Larry received the Heritage Award, given by the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE) to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to the field of special education. He served as President of NASDSE from November 2000 to November 2001. From 2000-02 he served as a member of the Board of Trustees of CARF…The Rehabilitation Accreditation Commission, an independent international not-for-profit commission which serves as the standards setting and accrediting body for rehabilitation and life enhancement programs and services for people with disabilities.

Larry is a member of the Technical Advisory Board of the National Research Center on Learning Disabilities co-located at the University of Kansas and Vanderbilt University, serves on the Professional Advisory Board to the National Center for Learning Disabilities in New York City, and serves as a consultant to the National Center on Special Education Accountability and Monitoring at Louisiana State University. He is also on the Critical Issues Committee for the state departments of education in Maryland and California.