Vicki E. Alger, Ph.D

Senior Fellow

Vicki (Murray) Alger, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Women for School Choice Project at the Independent Women's Forum. She is also Research Fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, California, working on a book examining the 30-year history of the U.S. Department of Education.

Dr. Alger’s research focuses on education reform measures to improve academic accountability at all levels, promote a competitive education climate, and increase parents’ control over their children’s education. She has advised the U.S. Department of Education on public school choice and higher education reform. She has also advised education policymakers in more than 30 states, provided expert testimony before state legislative education committees, served on two national accountability task forces, and her research was used as part of the successful legal defense of Arizona’s flagship tax-credit scholarship program in the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011 (Winn v. Garriott).

Dr. Alger has held education directorships at the Pacific Research Institute in Sacramento, California, and the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. Her research helped inspire numerous pieces of K-12 parental choice legislation in those states, including programs for students from low-income families, attending failing schools, with special needs, and children in the foster-care system. Dr. Alger’s research also informed a statewide higher education voucher program. 

Dr. Alger’s research and writings on market education policy have been widely published and cited in state and national media and research outlets, as well as outlets in Canada, Great Britain, Mexico, and New Zealand. Prior to her career in education policy, Dr. Alger taught college-level courses in American politics, English composition and rhetoric, and early British literature. She has lectured at universities nationwide, including the U.S. Military Academy, West Point. Dr. Alger received her Ph.D. in political philosophy from the Institute of Philosophic Studies at the University of Dallas, where she was an Earhart Foundation Fellow.

Recent Articles: