The Journal of School Choice is pleased to present a Special Section of this issue devoted to the 2020 International School Choice and Reform Conference (ISCRC) and its annual Best Paper Prize. What follows are the winner, second place and third place finishers as determined by an international panel of judges. Members of the panel, which I had the honor of Chairing, are:
Dr. Nina Buchanan, University of Hawaii
Dr. Triin Lauri, Tallinn University and the University of Oxford
Dr. Rodrigo Melo, Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Dr. Robert Maranto, University of Arkansas
Choosing between the eleven submissions was harder than you might imagine. The winners are:
“Out of Pocket? Out of Reach: How Hidden Costs Affect Participation in a Means-Test Choice Program,” by Anna Egalite, Lance Fusarelli, M.Daniela Barriga, Emily Antoszyk and D.T. Stallings
“Serving the Underserved? Student Characteristics and Staffing Patterns in California Charter Schools,” by Heather Rose and Sherrie Reed
“Heterogeneous Achievement Impacts Across Schools in the Louisiana Scholarship Program,” by Matthew Lee, Jonathan N. Mills, and Patrick J. Wolf
These three excellent papers were among those presented during the three days of the ISCRC in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida this winter. This conference, entering its ninth year, is special in several ways and these papers reflect some of those ways. First, it is a small, relatively intimate group of approximately 150 researchers, advocates, opponents, and practitioners who value the opportunity for intimate professional interaction over some of the other, much more massive, annual meetings of our professional associations. Second, the ISCRC clearly reflects the broad spectrum of alternatives to traditional public schools; featuring homeschooling, vouchers and educational savings accounts, private schools (both sectarian and nonsectarian), alongside charter schools. Of the three papers in this section, two are about educational vouchers and one is about charter schools. Third, the ISCRC takes the “I” (international), in its title very seriously. A significant contingent of international scholars from as far away as India and South Africa are part of our returning participants. In 2019, the ISCRC was in Lisbon, Portugal and after returning to Ft. Lauderdale in 2021, in 2022 we plan to meet in Dublin, Ireland. Please keep checking www.iscrweb.org for information as the year progresses. We hope you will join us and, even better, present a paper and compete for the Wolf Prize and its significant monetary award.