Sean Reardon

Sean Reardon is the Endowed Professor of Poverty and Inequality in Education at Stanford University's Graduate School of Education, a Professor (by courtesy) of Sociology, and a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. His research investigates the causes, patterns, trends, and consequences of social and educational inequality, particularly focusing on residential and school segregation, racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in academic achievement and educational success. Additionally, he develops methods for measuring social and educational inequality—including segregation and achievement gaps—and causal inference in educational and social science research. Reardon holds an Ed.D. (1997) and M.Ed. (1992) in Educational Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, an M.A. in International Peace Studies (1991), and a B.A. summa cum laude in the Program of Liberal Studies with a minor in Honors Mathematics (1986), both from the University of Notre Dame. He has been Professor at Stanford since 2004, after serving as Assistant Professor at The Pennsylvania State University (1999-2004). From 2009 to 2021, he directed the Stanford Interdisciplinary Doctoral Training Program in Quantitative Education Policy Analysis.

Reardon created the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA), which draws on 300 million standardized test scores to provide measures of educational opportunity, average test score performance, academic achievement gaps, and related metrics for every public school district in the United States. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has received the William T. Grant Foundation Scholar Award, the National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, the Spencer Foundation Lectureship (2015), and the American Educational Research Association's Palmer O. Johnson Award (2013), among other honors. Notable publications include "Is Separate Still Unequal? New Evidence on School Segregation and Racial Academic Achievement Gaps" (American Sociological Review, 2024), "Gender Achievement Gaps in US School Districts" (American Educational Research Journal, 2019), "The Geography of Racial/Ethnic Test Score Gaps" (American Journal of Sociology, 2019), and "School District and Community Factors Associated with Test Score Declines During the COVID-19 Pandemic" (Teachers College Record, 2025). His work has substantially shaped academic and policy discourse on educational equity.

Professional Email: sean.reardon@stanford.edu