Barnett Berry

Barnett Berry, a research professor at the University of South Carolina, serves as Senior Director for Policy & Innovation for the College of Education. He also serves as a Senior Research Fellow for the Learning Policy Institute. In 2019, he returned to faculty of the UofSC to launch ALL4SC (Accelerating Learning and Leadership for South Carolina) – a systems approach to marshalling resources and expertise from within the entire university to serve the needs of the state’s highest-needs children, schools and communities.

In the 1980s Barnett served as a high school teacher and think tank analyst at the RAND Corporation and in the 1990s as a senior policy leader for the South Carolina Department of Education, a professor of education at UofSC and a consultant to the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. In 1999, he founded the Center for Teaching Quality to ignite change inside of public education driven by the ideas and practices of teachers. In 2003, the Center for Teaching Quality launched the nation’s first virtual network of teacher leaders, which grew to 10,000 members leading to more opportunities for those who teach students everyday to lead without leaving their classrooms.

Barnett has authored more than 120 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters related to understanding the teaching profession, improving teachers’ working conditions and spurring their leadership, and developing more effective education policies grounded in realities of our public schools. His two books, TEACHING 2030 and Teacherpreneurs: Innovative Teachers Who Lead But Don’t Leave, frame a bold vision for the profession’s future and a system of learning for young people and those who teach them. His most recent research has focused on the role a school’s teaching and learning conditions plays in teacher retention and school performance and how teacher-led learning and leadership leads to better and more equitable outcomes for students.