2026 Educational Opportunity Project
About: The Educational Opportunity Project (EOP) at Stanford University uses and generates a range of data on educational conditions, contexts, and outcomes to help scholars, policy makers, educators, and the general public learn about the landscape of educational opportunity and academic achievement in the US. The EOP houses multiple initiatives that undergraduate researchers support: 1. The Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA): SEDA is the first 11-year national database of academic performance based on nearly 450 million 3-8th grade math and reading and language arts test scores from the 2009-2024 school years. 2. The Segregation Explorer: SegX is initiative jointly run by Professor Reardon and Professor Ann Owens at UCLA to compile and monitor school and neighborhood segregation from the 1970s through today. 3. The Kindergarten Readiness Initiative: The KRI is an initiative to develop a comparable database of kindergarten readiness assessment data for school districts across the country.
Research Tasks:
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The EOP RA will be responsible for assisting on current research projects using data from the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA), the Segregation Explorer, and the Kindergarten Readiness Initiative.
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The RA may also have the opportunity to research and prepare a report on their own topic of interest related to the work of the EOP – recent topics include the building a database of publications using SEDA data and link Edible Schoolyard Program participation data to SEDA.
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Specific tasks include: conducting background research on relevant topics and writing literature reviews; collecting, cleaning, and organizing data for analyses; producing memos and data reports for various projects; collaborating with EOP research staff, partners, and other RAs; and outreach (via email, phone, and conference calls) to stakeholders.
Qualifications: Interest in education, education policy, and social and educational inequality is desirable. Quantitative skills, such as data cleaning, data analysis, and programming in Stata also desired but not required. Strong ability to work independently, comfort taking initiative, and attention to detail is an asset.
Base stipend is $8500 with up to $1500 additional stipend based on financial need.
- This is a full-time position; students are expected to participate 35+ hours/week for 10 consecutive weeks. Participants are not permitted to engage in another full-time internship, job, or volunteer opportunity (whether funded by Stanford or otherwise). They also may not hold a part-time internship, job, or volunteer opportunity unless their faculty mentors or program mentors have approved these arrangements before the start of the summer. Students also cannot receive an additional VPUE part-time grant within the same quarter.
- Students must be current undergraduates in good standing at Stanford during the summer quarter; those graduating in June are not eligible.
- Students may not receive both academic units and a stipend for any single project activity.
- Students pursuing a coterminal MA are eligible ONLY IF 1) they have not conferred their undergraduate degree AND 2) they are in the undergraduate (not graduate) tuition group.
- Students may not be serving a suspension or be on a Leave of Absence (LOA) while using grant funding.
