The Charters & School Choice SIG seeks to connect with researchers and practitioners nationally and internationally to pore the world of school choice. SIG members have been actively publishing in the Journal of School Choice and assisting in organizing and presenting the International School Choice and Reform Conference in Ft. Lauderdale for the past four years. The letter from the planning committee to colleagues below describes the current status of the conference and what you can do to help.
Thank you for your prior participation in the International School Choice & Reform conferences in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. With your support, the ISCR has become a featured place for education policy scholars and practitioners to share evidence and ideas, and forge lasting friendships and professional collaborations.
Transitions can be difficult. This year, Dr. Judy Stein retired from her long-time position as Executive Director of the National Institute for Educational Options (NIEO). Nigel Whyte, the Assistant Director of NIEO, also moved on. Because of this severe loss of talent and institutional memory, Nova Southeastern University has decided not to host the 5th International School Choice & Reform Conference in January, 2016.
We have no choice but to cancel the conference, at least for next year. We welcome any suggestions that you might have regarding a future host for the conference. In the meantime, we recommend that you consider one of the following major conferences as a venue to present your school choice research:
Southern Political Science Association January 7-9, 2016 San Juan, Puerto Rico http://spsa.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2016CallforProposals.pdf (Dr. Paul Manna, the organizer of the Public Policy Section, is an education policy scholar)
Global Home Education Conference March 9-12, 2016 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil http://www.ghec2016.org/en
Association for Education Finance and Policy March 17-19, 2016 Denver, Colorado, USA http://aefpweb.org/conferences/future
Charters & School Choice SIG (Special Interest Group) American Educational Research Association April 8-12, 2016 Washington, DC http://www.aera.net/
European Educational Research Association August 22-25, 2016 Dublin, Ireland http://www.eera-ecer.de/
We hope that this year merely represents a pause in our work to bring together the top school choice researchers in the world for a lively and productive conference. We will be in touch again when we have information about a 2017 conference.
Very truly yours,
Priscilla Wohlstetter, Ph.D. Chair of the Conference Planning Committee (On behalf of the Committee)