Barnett Berry is founder and president of the Center for Teaching Quality, based in Hillsborough, NC. The Center seeks to improve student learning by shaping policies through developing teacher leadership, building coalitions, and conducting practical research. Dr. Berry's career, which began as an underprepared, inner-city high school teacher in 1978, has focused on a wide range of efforts to close America’s student achievement gap by closing the teaching quality gap.

Dr. Berry has worked as a social scientist at the RAND Corporation, served as a senior executive with the South Carolina State Department of Education, and directed an education policy center while he was a professor at the University of South Carolina.

In the 1990s, Dr. Berry played a major role in developing the blue ribbon report of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, and later leading its state policy and partnership efforts.

Berry earned his PhD in educational policy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is author of over one hundred journal articles, book chapters, and commissioned reports on school reform, accountability, and the teaching profession. He serves on boards and in an advisory capacity to numerous organizations committed to teaching quality, equity, and social justice in America’s schools.