Three issues Georgia parents are most concerned about

by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Jul 24, 2025

Three issues Georgia parents are most concerned about

According to a new report from Emory University, ”The State of Child Health and Well-Being in Georgia 2025,” quality of education, mental health, and the effects of social media are top concerns for Georgia parents.

The report is based on a statewide survey, which asked parents to share what they’re most worried about when it comes to their children’s health, safety, and well-being. The leading issues are not isolated worries. Instead, they are the daily realities shared by Georgia families from a variety of backgrounds and types of communities.

Parents are most worried about education and school quality

More Georgia parents cited education and school quality as a top concern than any other issue.

Confidence in schools is slipping across all communities, especially among Black and Hispanic families, who are more likely to rate their local schools as “fair” or “poor.” For 35% of Black parents, education quality was the second highest concern behind gun violence.

Education is also the top issue across geographic locations: 36% of rural parents and 39% of non-rural parents said it was their highest concern, followed by social media and bullying.

When it comes to schools, safety is just as much top-of-mind for parents as the quality of education. Overall, 60% of parents surveyed feel that schools are less safe than in the past. They overwhelmingly support measures to improve school safety, including mental health awareness and laws promoting safe firearm storage.

Top_Concerns_for_Georgia_Parents-Overall_Results

Image: Emory Center for Child Health Policy, “State of Child Health and Well-Being in Georgia 2025“

Mental health concerns are growing

According to the report, as many as 15% of Georgia children have depression, 25% have ADHD, and 31% have anxiety. Some of these children have received an official diagnosis, while others have not—though their parents are concerned about the possibility.

Even more alarming: 63% of kids who have been diagnosed with a mental health condition aren’t yet receiving the care they need.

Georgia parents are trying to respond. Encouragingly, most parents say they feel comfortable talking to their kids about suicide and emotional well-being.

But access to mental health services remains a major issue. Long waitlists, provider shortages, and geographic barriers keep kids from the help they need—especially in rural areas. These challenges can snowball into higher rates of school dropouts, encounters with the juvenile justice system, substance abuse, and other negative outcomes.

Social media is fueling anxiety for both parents and kids

Georgia parents are also worried about the impact of digital life on their children’s well-being. Social media ranked among the top three concerns statewide, right alongside bullying and gun violence.

Parents recognize the growing physical and emotional tolls of social media on young people—everything from unrealistic expectations and cyberbullying to struggles with sleep and behavioral regulation.

The takeaway is clear: families want better tools for managing digital risks—and they need help to set institutional boundaries that protect kids’ mental and emotional health.

The good news is that Georgia lawmakers are recognizing the urgency of this issue. In 2025, Georgia lawmakers passed the Distraction-Free Schools Act (HB 340) to limit cellphone use for K-8 public school students during the school day. Under the bill, phones could be restricted from the start of the school day until the end, ensuring students can fully engage in learning and schools can foster an environment that supports focus and mental well-being.

Listening to parents is key to moving forward

For policymakers and community leaders, these findings shed light on where Georgia’s families need better solutions and support. Giving families more school choice options, improving school safety and learning environments, and strengthening access to mental health care are all areas where smart policy reforms and community-based efforts can help remove barriers to opportunity, especially for our most vulnerable communities.

Image Credits: Canva, Emory Center for Child Health Policy

Are we witnessing a Baltimore Miracle in the fight against crime?

by Rebecca Primis | Jul 3, 2025

Georgia news, in the news, current events, Georgia happenings, GA happenings

Are we witnessing a Baltimore Miracle in the fight against crime?

Joshua Crawford in The Baltimore Sun
Originally published July 3, 2025

By the mid-1990s, Boston was in a constant state of tumult. While homicides had been high since 1980, the six years from 1989-1995 would prove to be among the city’s deadliest, with 710 murders — 75 more than the preceding six-year period. Racial strife and police abuses riled the city after the 1989 murder of Carol Stuart — a pregnant white woman from the suburbs — whose murder was blamed on a young Black man by her husband, the actual killer.

For the foreseeable future, Boston was to be a place of violence, chaos and disorder. Only, that’s not what happened. Thanks to a team composed of the Boston Police Department, researchers from Harvard University and local religious leaders, an innovative approach called “Operation Ceasefire” dramatically reduced violent crime in the city. Over the next four years, youth homicides decreased in the city by 63%, and Boston has become one of the safest large cities in the country.

Governments and the media hailed that initial decrease as the “Boston Miracle.” Nearly three decades later, similar reductions in Baltimore deserve the same praise — if not more.

Baltimore has struggled with crime, especially drugs and violent crime, in both reality and in the imaginations of the American people for decades. Routinely in the top of the “most violent” or “least safe” city rankings, Baltimore has only had fewer than 200 murders three times since 1970.

In line with national trends, murder totals began increasing in the 1960s and then decreasing in the 1990s through 2014. Then, also in line with national trends, murder rose sharply in 2015 and remained elevated. Baltimore did not have fewer than 300 murders again until 2023, when a mix of best practices produced one of the most impressive declines in deadly violence in the nation’s recent history. Murder declined nearly 22% in 2023, and then another almost 23% in 2024 — erasing all of the post-2014 increases. Through May 1, 2025, homicides were down another 31%, putting Baltimore on pace for its fourth sub-200 murder year since 1970, and the city’s lowest total since the mid-1960s.

What happened?

Read the full article here.

Joshua Crawford is the Director of Criminal Justice Initiatives at the Georgia Center for Opportunity and the author of “Kids and Community Violence: Costs, Consequences, and Solutions” in the edited volume Doing Right by Kids.

Welfare stands in the way of the American dream

by Rebecca Primis | Jul 3, 2025

Op-Ed: Welfare stands in the way of the American dream

Randy Hicks in the Washington Examiner
Originally published July 3, 2025

As we celebrate Independence Day, we’ll be reminded of our inherent right to life, liberty, and one of our country’s most defining ideals: the American dream. Each of us has a picture of what the American dream looks like, but a common theme throughout is the ability to achieve what we want through hard work.

It’s important to remember, however, that there’s more to the American dream than money, promotions, or a nice house.

It’s what those things make possible. The economic markers associated with the American dream — income, upward mobility, homeownership — are not the ends in themselves. They’re tools. A good job and a house in a safe neighborhood matter not just because they are desirable, but because they create the space for something deeper: family, friendships, and community.

As humans, we are wired to connect with family members, friends, coworkers, and neighbors. This Fourth of July, it’s worth noting that meaningful relationships and a strong sense of community are as much a part of the American dream as any economic measure.

Unfortunately, our belief in that dream is dwindling. Just 53% of Americans think the American dream is still possible.

Clearly, something is amiss, and it’s more than the rising cost of owning a home. Our sense of community, once a defining feature of America, is also slipping away.

Despite being more technologically connected than ever, there is an epidemic of loneliness in the United States. Deaths from suicide, alcohol-related illness, or drug overdoses — “deaths of despair” — have more than doubled since the 1990s.

Meanwhile, very few Americans attend religious services, and a growing number of men have no close friends. Participation in traditional civic groups and community organizations continues to fall. Family formation is also on the decline. Americans aren’t getting married and aren’t having kids.

There are many reasons behind these cultural shifts. But what’s rarely discussed is how systemic obstacles are driving some of these troubling trends.

There are federal and state policies in place that make it harder to achieve what the American dream is all about: the freedom to shape your own future, build a family, and contribute to your community.

America’s safety net system, in particular, prevents people and families, especially from poorer backgrounds, from achieving the American dream.

Congress is thankfully considering reforms to this system for the first time in decades, including adding work requirements to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It’s promising that we’re finally discussing the importance of connecting work to welfare. But work requirements will do little to fix the larger structural problems with the safety net system.

If lawmakers dug deeper, they’d find baked into these programs a phenomenon where beneficiaries are often discouraged from getting a job or a raise. They’d notice that our tax code penalizes welfare recipients for getting married and forming a family. And they’d discover that even if we implement work requirements, welfare agencies are not set up to help recipients find jobs. Welfare and workforce programs oddly operate in silos, making it difficult for people to access the support they need to secure employment.

These are policy failures that push people in the opposite direction of the American dream, into a life of dependency instead of self-determination —a life that makes it difficult not only to get ahead but to build meaningful relationships and a sense of purpose.

If the U.S. is going to continue to thrive, we need institutions and policies that don’t stand in the way of achieving the full extent of the American dream. That means a safety net that no longer discourages work, penalizes marriage, or traps people in a cycle of dependency.

Randy Hicks is the president and chief executive officer of the Georgia Center for Opportunity and founding member of the Alliance for Opportunity.

A better way to get welfare recipients back into the labor force

by Rebecca Primis | Jul 1, 2025

A better way to get welfare recipients back into the labor force

Randy Hicks in City Journal
Originally published July 1, 2025

House Republicans’ proposed Medicaid reforms have reignited a national conversation about work requirements. The GOP is right to argue that work is part of a good life, and that some program recipients should be required to hold a job.

But work requirements are only a first step. If the One Big Beautiful Bill becomes law, states will quickly discover that their administrative systems are ill-equipped to move recipients from welfare to work. To succeed, states should adopt a more integrated approach—one that provides access to both benefits and job training in a single location. The model for such an approach is Utah’s “One Door” strategy.

Today, nearly one in three Americans relies on some form of government assistance. But instead of helping vulnerable Americans get back on their feet, the safety net often keeps recipients mired in poverty, unable to break out of dependency and into self-reliance.

To understand why, consider the origins of America’s social welfare system. The modern safety net began in 1935 with the Social Security Act, followed by Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, and cash welfare. Today, the government runs more than 80 assistance programs.

But these programs weren’t designed to operate together. In fact, calling them a “system” is misleading—there’s nothing systematic about them. Policymakers created the programs at different times, in response to different problems. Though the dollars start in Washington, they’re administered unevenly by the states. The result is a patchwork of siloed programs with overlapping goals, duplicative rules, disincentives to work, and little coordination of data or caseloads.

This complex maze dehumanizes millions of Americans in need. It forces low-income individuals to navigate countless forms, offices, and eligibility rules just to receive assistance. Few programs offer a clear path back into the workforce.

Yet work is essential to escaping poverty. Unemployment is a major driver of long-term dependency—and a key reason many people turn to welfare in the first place. Unfortunately, in nearly every state, the federally funded workforce training system operates entirely separate from the safety net.

Read the full article here.

Randy Hicks is the president and chief executive officer of the Georgia Center for Opportunity and cofounder of the Alliance for Opportunity.