Faculty Expert Profile

Ashley Berner is deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and studies educational pluralism in democracies around the world.

She also examines the effects of content-rich curricula and instruction upon student success, and researches the connection between strong school cultures and long-term civic participation. She has taught in a Jewish preschool, an Episcopal secondary school, and an open university in Louisiana. Berner publishes and speaks frequently on academic and civic outcomes of different school sectors, and advises policymakers on mechanisms that advance educational excellence and equity.

Berner has published articles and book chapters about the relationship between educational structure and state funding in democratic nations, religious education and citizenship formation, and teacher preparation in different national contexts. Palgrave MacMillan published "Pluralism and American Public Education: No One Way to School" in 2017.

She recently published an essay in The Hill about the Supreme Court's decision to hear Espinoza v. Montana, "a case that gets at the heart of what public schooling means in the United States," she wrote.

The United States's "restrictions on aid to non-public — and explicitly religious — schools makes us an outlier among our democratic peers," she wrote. "Most democracies embrace a broader view of public education. They fund a wide array of schools, including religious schools."