Real-Time Insights

The Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education’s Top 10 Issues to Watch in 2026 is its 22nd annual, nonpartisan policy brief outlining priority education and workforce challenges across the state. The report organizes 10 issue areas into three themes—investing in talent, optimizing local strategies, and aligning priorities and investments—offering a roadmap for how state and community leaders can address immediate needs while building long-term systems that improve student outcomes and quality of life.

Key insights:

• Systems alignment is central: 10 priority issues are grouped into 3 cross-sector strategy areas, signaling a shift from isolated interventions to coordinated education, workforce, and health solutions.
• Talent pipeline gaps start early: Early learning, career pathways, and teacher quality are identified as the core levers to close long-term skills gaps and improve workforce readiness.
• Local outcomes drive statewide progress: Attendance, literacy, healthcare access, and rural investment are highlighted as place-based challenges requiring coordinated community-level action alongside state policy.

Read the brief here.

A new report from Georgia State University’s Child & Family Policy Labs analyzes how young adults with foster care backgrounds engage with Georgia’s public adult education system between July 2017 and June 2023. Using administrative data, the study compares foster youth and non-foster youth under 24, examining their demographics, education experiences, and outcomes. Although adult education programs — supported by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act — offer important pathways to high school equivalency credentials, postsecondary education, and jobs, foster youth face additional barriers that impact their success rates.

Key Takeaways:

• Only 2.7% of young adult learners in Georgia’s adult education system reported a foster care background between 2017–2023.

• Foster youth face more severe barriers to education and employment, including higher rates of low academic assessment, single parenthood, homelessness, and criminal justice involvement.

• More than a third of foster youth learners in Atlanta-area counties attend classes provided by public school systems, rather than technical colleges or community organizations.

• Despite attending a similar number of class hours, foster youth are less likely to earn a high school equivalency credential than their peers.

Read the full publication here.

This edition of the Georgia Partnership’s Top Ten Issues to Watch report addresses both immediate needs and long-term strategies to help Georgia reach its North Star goal. Each issue highlights the benefits of removing barriers that prevent all Georgians from achieving a good quality of life. The report is organized into three key areas: deeper learning, system improvements, and future-focused solutions.

Key Areas:

• A Recipe for Deeper Learning: For the first time, the Georgia Partnership dedicates a section to accelerating student success through deeper learning. It explores three key factors—attendance, student motivation, and teacher quality—that significantly impact student engagement.
• Building Momentum to Reach the North Star: This section recommends system and investment changes to support children, youth, and working adults. Topics include early childhood interventions, aligning K-12 staffing with student needs, and expanding post-secondary education access through nontraditional pathways.
• Investing in the Solutions of the Future: This section looks ahead to 2033 and focuses on workforce readiness, responsible AI integration, and reimagining public education funding and evaluation to foster innovation.

Read the full report here.

At the 2024 State of Education in Metro Atlanta, Learn4Life shared data, perspectives, and solutions around three key regional themes:

1. Stubborn literacy gaps: While 3rd-grade reading proficiency is above pre-pandemic levels, race, economic, and language disparities persist. Scaling efforts like Vision to Learn show promise, as an estimated 40,000 of 138,000 elementary students in underserved metro communities need glasses but lack access.
2. Depleted teacher morale: Only 59% of Georgia teachers report being likely to remain in the profession in the next five years. The most significant factor is that half report feeling burned out, often (78%) noting a lack of administrative support. 
3. Students’ limited access to critical supports: The 2024 FAFSA process led to a significant decline in form completion, disproportionately impacting those who need financial aid the most. FAFSA completion is a leading indicator of postsecondary success among low-income students, making this a critical issue.

Read the annual State of Education in Metro Atlanta report and watch the live stream on United Way of Greater Atlanta’s Facebook page.

In a recent presentation, the Get Georgia Reading Campaign (GGR) showcased data about student absenteeism in Georgia as reported by the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement (GOSA). The data shows chronic school absenteeism has doubled for all grades since 2019.

Key takeaways:

• While absenteeism of less than five days per school year has decreased since 2019, the percentage of students absent six days or more per school year has increased.
• Chronic student absenteeism – the percentage of children missing school more than 15 days per school year – has doubled since 2019.
  This is true for every grade (pre-K to 12th) but is more dramatic for lower grades.
• By the end of the third grade, about 25% of Georgia students have missed at least 75 days of school – two and a half months.
• By the end of the fourth grade, almost 25% of Georgia students have missed at least three months of school.

See the data slides here.

During their 8th Grade Math Network meeting earlier this month, Learn4Life presented insights from the 2022 Professional Association of Georgia Educators (PAGE) legislative survey. Nearly 4,600 educators participated in the survey, demonstrating the value of educators’ input in critical educational decisions at the state and local levels. Some of the key findings include:

• Approximately 31%of all responding educators report that they are unlikely to remain in education for another five years.
• More than 56% of educators with 20 years or less experience identified burnout as the first or second reason they are unlikely to stay in education.
• About 93% of participating teachers report their school districts have difficulty recruiting substitutes.
• Over 90% of school and central office administrators indicate their districts are facing a shortage of bus drivers.
• Nearly 75% of teachers who graduated from college in 2005 or later carry student loan debt.

Despite these challenges, educators are drawn to and stay in education because of the professional satisfaction from helping students, employment benefits, and supportive colleagues and a positive work environment.

On December 1st, Learn4Life held their annual convening to share the factors shaping the state of education in Metro Atlanta.

1. Interrupted learning from the pandemic is substantial
2. School districts need our support
3. Amplification of bright spots is essential
4. Cradle to career view is necessary

View the data and proposed solutions — including a panel of superintendents answering student questions — in the Facebook Live recording here. And read the full report on L4L’s website.