Robert Gordon, OMB Acting Deputy Director, to Join Brookings

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Robert Gordon, acting deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget and an expert on education policy, will join the Brookings Institution as a guest scholar in April, Brookings President Strobe Talbott announced today.

In addition to participating in the major budget negotiations of the last two years, Gordon has led OMB’s effort to increase the use of evidence and evaluation to guide federal policymaking. He has also played a key role in developing and shepherding the administration’s early childhood, education, training, and social insurance initiatives.

“Robert’s work at OMB and impressive background in education policy make him a perfect fit for our Center on Children and Families,” said Brookings Vice President and Co-Director of Economic Studies Karen Dynan. “Robert spearheaded the Obama administration’s historic attempt to base policy innovations on rigorous social science research,” said Ron Haskins, senior fellow in Economic Studies and co-director of Brookings’ Center on Children and Families.

Robert is a graduate of Harvard College, summa cum laude, and Yale Law School. Prior to joining the Obama administration, Robert led an overhaul of the New York City Department of Education’s system for allocating $5 billion among 1,400 schools. While a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, he co-authored a widely cited study of teacher effectiveness, one of the first papers produced by the Hamilton Project at Brookings; wrote a cover article on education reform for The New Republic; and published widely on other domestic issues. Robert has been a consultant to major foundations and school systems, and he was the senior domestic policy aide to Senator John Edwards between 2002 and 2004. Earlier in his career, Robert was a law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; a Skadden fellow and staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society in New York City; and an analyst for the National Economic Council and White House Office of National Service, where he helped to create AmeriCorps.

In addition to his work at Brookings, he will be working on a project with the College Board aimed at understanding and measuring inequities in student skills and learning at the earliest ages.