Member Since 2015


Nora Gordon is Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University. Her research interests center around the economics of education, including fiscal federalism, desegregation and political economy. She has studied the causes and consequences of school desegregation, intergovernmental grants, school district consolidation, and the current and historical federal role in elementary and secondary education. Professor Gordon is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Education Research. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Spencer Foundation for Education Research, the American Educational Research Association, and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Previously, she was Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego from 2002 to 2010.

Published Articles & Media

Illustration of the Tennessee Reading 360 program

How to Decide How to Spend Elementary and Secondary School Relief Funds

The timing and rules may be less tricky than many think

To Broaden Evidence Use Beyond the Federal Law’s Requirements, Use Common Sense

Consider how the costs and benefits of one strategy compare to the alternatives

What Works vs. What We Can Evaluate

Pushing schools to use evidence poses a real risk that school leaders will feel pressure to choose approaches that have been easier to evaluate, rather than those that are the most central to improving educational practice.

Who Is in Special Education and Who Has Access to Related Services?

New Evidence From the National Survey of Children’s Health

Disproportionality in Student Discipline: Connecting Policy to Research

Researchers should consider the importance of implementation research as an integral part of discipline reform program evaluation.

Laptops in the Classroom: An Open and Closed Case

Do professors who study education policy allow their students to use laptops in the classroom?

Race, Poverty, and Interpreting Overrepresentation in Special Education

Research shows that racial and ethnic minority students are less likely to be identified for special education than white students when you take other student characteristics into account.

How State ESSA Accountability Plans Can Shine a Statistically Sound Light on More Students

Pooling data across years and grades may provide an opportunity to include students in accountability systems in cases where subgroup size is otherwise too small.

The Importance of High Quality General Education for Students in Special Education

New evidence suggests that it’s possible for special education students to make large achievement gains without their traditional services in schools with high quality general education programs.

What Title I Portability Would Mean for the Distribution of Federal Education Aid

Title I formulas now provide extra funds per poor student in poorer places. Under portability, this would no longer be true,

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