About This Episode

Season 8. Episode 3.

When parents choose a school, test scores and rankings can only tell them so much. How do families determine where their child will actually feel safe, supported, challenged, and able to thrive?

In this episode of Education Insight, we sit down with Dr. Ashley Rogers Berner, Director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and an expert on educational pluralism, to explore the changing landscape of school choice in America.

What does “school choice” actually include today? What should parents look for beyond rankings and test scores? And as more states expand options such as Education Savings Accounts, who benefits from greater choice, and what barriers can still stand in the way?

We also explore what other countries can teach us about educational pluralism, concerns surrounding funding and specialized student services, and where the national conversation about choice may be heading.

For families trying to make sense of an increasingly complex educational landscape, this conversation examines the questions worth asking before deciding where a child learns.

Featured Guests

Dr. Ashley Rodgers Berner

Associate Professor
Director, Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy

Biography

Ashley Berner is Director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and Associate Professor of Education. She is widely recognized as the nation’s expert on educational pluralism, or the way many countries structure public education to include “choice” and “accountability” by design. She has published two books on pluralism and democracy, Pluralism and American Public Education: No One Way to School (2017), and Educational Pluralism and American Democracy: How to Handle Indoctrination, Promote Exposure, and Rebuild America’s Schools (2024), and is the series editor of Education and Democracy Brief Books (Harvard Education Press, forthcoming).

Dr. Berner has also published dozens of articles, book chapters, op-eds, and a widely watched TedX talk on citizenship formation, academic outcomes, pluralism, and the political theories of education in different national contexts. She led the design of the Institute’s School Culture 360™ and ELA and Social Studies Knowledge Maps™.

Dr. Berner represents the Institute’s work across the country and consults regularly with international, federal, and state-level agencies, non-governmental organizations, and school systems. Dr. Berner holds degrees from Davidson College (Honors A.B.) and from Oxford University (M.Litt. and D.Phil. in Modern History).