College of Charleston senior education fellow Terry Peterson will represent South Carolina as one of the six most improved school systems at a Harvard University conference. “Learning from Improving School Systems at Home and Abroad” will take place from July 25 through 27, 2012 at Harvard’s Kennedy School (Program on Education Policy and Governance).
The conference will feature speakers from the six states with the highest rate of educational improvement between 1990 and 2011 (Maryland, Florida, Delaware, Massachusetts, South Carolina and Louisiana) and the five countries with the highest rates of improvement (including Latvia, Poland, Chile). American and international education reform experts, academics, researchers and leaders will also be making presentations. View a listing of improvement by states between 1990 and 2011.
Of Peterson’s 46 years working in education, 35 years have been spent involved in education reform and improvement in S.C., a key reason he was chosen to represent the state. His education reform experience includes eight years as Governor Richard Riley’s education executive, under whom the South Carolina Education Improvement Act was passed. Governor Riley has called Peterson “the chief architect of that critical act.” The South Carolina Education Improvement Act funding helped initiate and promote school reform and improvement during much of the 1990-2011 time period featured in this international conference.
“Given today’s headlines, it may be hard for the general public to believe that South Carolina has one of the highest educational improvement rates,” Peterson says. “But, we have made significant gains in math, reading and science and I think we can attribute the gains partly to massive educator, parent and community engagement. While it is not a focus of this particular study, South Carolina has also made strong strides forward in arts education and arts learning and writing over this time period.”
Peterson partially attributes the constant gains in performance during the time period to the South Carolina Education Improvement Act funding of reforms along with the education lottery funds, the Education Accountability Act of 1998 and Education and Economic Development Act of 2005 were state policies that contributed to the constant gains in performance over this time period.
In addition to serving under Governor Riley, Peterson spent almost another eight years as the head of a unique South Carolina education accountability commission, and almost eight years at the College of Charleston studying education reform and also working across America to expand learning opportunities afterschool and summers, with support from the CS Mott Foundation, and chairing the National Board of the Afterschool Alliance. His national involvement includes service as chief counselor to the U.S. Secretary of Education (1993-2001) and as an education reform advisor to more than twelve states.
The conference presentations will be streamed live from the Harvard website.
