Education in the United States has not always looked like its current incarnation. The current model, which treats district schools as the norm and repudiates educational pluralism, developed in the United States as a consequence of political and cultural anxieties and in contrast to our democratic peers around the world. Ashley Berner discusses the mistaken assumption that “nonsectarian” schools are neutral with respect to values.

Ashley R. Berner, Ph.D. is Director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and Associate Professor of Education. Among other things, she focuses her scholarship on educational pluralism. Her book, No One Way to School: Pluralism and American Public Education, was published in 2017.

Image courtesy of interviewee. November 5, 2021