WASHINGTON—The Heritage Foundation announced today that Matthew Ladner, Ph.D., has joined the Center for Education Policy as senior advisor on education policy implementation.

A well-renowned scholar on education policy, Ladner has written numerous studies on education choice, charter schools, and special education reform. He joins Heritage after serving as the director of the Arizona Center for Student Opportunity at the Arizona Charter School Association. Previously, Ladner served as senior research fellow at the Charles Koch Institute and senior advisor for research and policy at Excel in Ed as well as vice president of research at the Goldwater Institute.

He has decades of experience testifying before Congress, state legislatures, and the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

At Heritage, Ladner will work on ensuring that new education choice options enacted in state policy are well implemented and safeguarded for the future.

“States have made tremendous progress in expanding education choice to students these past few years, especially in creating universal education savings accounts,” said Lindsey Burke, director of Heritage’s Center for Education Policy. “I’m thrilled to have Dr. Ladner join Heritage as we now pivot to making sure these options are serving families effectively and maximizing the education choices available to them.”

On joining Heritage, Ladner said the following:

“America stands on the edge of a new frontier of freedom in education. Teachers have bravely departed from bureaucratic systems to set up schools to pursue their vision of education. Families no longer accept what special interests deign to impose on them. The Heritage Foundation is on the front lines of advancing the cause of dignity and pluralism and I am thrilled to join.”

Ladner is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and received both a master’s and a Ph.D. in political science at the University of Houston. He is based in Phoenix, Arizona.