Maria Worthen - Consultant

Maria Worthen, MSW is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Education Policy Strategies LLC. She is a mission-oriented, K-12 education policy expert who is driven to inspire and empower others who are passionate about this work to create real and lasting change. Her work uniquely spans both policy and practice: she divides her time between consulting with national education and youth-focused organizations at Education Policy Strategies and the public high school where she is a social worker. Her real-world insights into the realities of post-pandemic public education are valuable and rare in the field of education policy and research.

As the Vice President of Federal & State Policy at the Aurora Institute (formerly iNACOL), Maria led the development of the Center for Policy Advocacy and provided testimony, lawmaker education, and technical assistance to the White House, U.S. Department of Education, and to hundreds of state policymakers. She published numerous articles and papers on federal accountability and assessment and state policies that support competency-based education, personalized learning, online learning, and blended learning.

Maria served as Education Policy Advisor to Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa on his staff of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. She also worked at the US Department of Education, serving in the Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, and at the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. She was a 2003 Presidential Management Fellow.

Maria started her career as a preschool teacher. She holds a B.A. in Government and Italian Language and Literature from Smith College and a Masters in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis. She is based in Falls Church, Virginia, USA.