EDUCATION
Workforce education in Georgia provides businesses with a constant flow of skilled employees. The state’s education system – from its leading early education programs to its nationally ranked colleges and universities – nurture the talent to fill jobs at all levels.
Georgia has raised its academic standards, as evidenced by student achievements such as:
- Rising ACT scores, even as the number of Georgia students taking the ACT has increased and the national ACT average score has dropped.
- Rising scores on Advanced Placement exams, which show mastery of college-level work while in high school. Georgia now ranks 11th in the nation for the percentage of high school seniors scoring a 3 or higher on AP exams, and the past seven years have brought a 97 percent increase in the number of students achieving these scores.
- Reading scores that exceed the national average for minority 4th and 8th grade students on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
The state will pilot new approaches in hundreds of schools, using a $400 million Race to the Top grant that will introduce programs to improve teaching in 26 school districts statewide. High-school graduation rates are at an all-time high, and new initiatives at the secondary and post-secondary levels will ensure that more Georgians are prepared to tackle the jobs of today and tomorrow.
Georgia-educated workers have reaped the benefits of:
- A publicly funded pre-kindergarten program that provides an early foundation for learning
- Elementary and secondary schools that utilize a quality core curriculum to ensure student achievement
- Guaranteed 90 percent tuition scholarships for high-performing students attending the Georgia Tech, the University of Georgia and the state’s 30 other colleges and universities, with 100 percent tuition paid for the very best students
- A technical college system highly attuned to the needs of today’s businesses
- The HOPE Scholarship, which pays college costs at any public institution in Georgia for the highest achievers