NEWS & OPINIONS
State Leaders Push for Employers to Hire Ex-Offenders
Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO) is pleased to see Governor Nathan Deal and U.S. Attorney Sally Yates (Northern District of Georgia) exercise their influence to encourage business leaders across the state to hire ex-offenders. They are urging employers to give...
Snow Can’t Stop This Crowd for School Choice
By Dr. Danielle LeSure, GCO's Director of Education Policy Amazingly, over 600 students, parents, teachers, and school leaders crowded the Capitol in the middle of a snow storm to cheer for school choice options—charter schools, public school transfers, special needs...
Demand for Choice High: Education Tax Credit Cap Reached in Record 22 Days
Just this past week, Georgia's Tax Credit Scholarship program reached its cap of allowable donation commitments (currently, $58 million) in well under a month. That's the earliest the cap has been reached in the program's history, three and a half months earlier than...
Despite Guidelines, Many Georgia Students Not “College Ready”
Below is a guest blog by Dr. Eric Wearne of Georgia Gwinnett College and formerly with the Governor's Office of Student Achievement. Dr. Wearne currently leads GCO's College & Career Pathways working group. **************************** By: Dr. Eric Wearne What it...
Cage-Busting Leadership: Reforming Public Education from Within
Our team at GCO had the privilege of hosting Dr. Rick Hess this week. On Tuesday, Dr. Hess, who is an education scholar (and prolific writer) with the American Enterprise Institute, spoke at an early morning breakfast attended by a group of about 45 people that...
New Report: Increasing Employment Opportunities for Ex-Offenders
This week, Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO) published its first report on ways to improve reentry for ex-offenders in the state. The report focuses on increasing employment opportunities for ex-offenders and offers six recommendations for the State of Georgia to...
Collective Impact “Knowledge Nuggets”
GCO’s Breakthrough Communities initiative is modeled, in part, on the collective impact framework developed by the Strive Partnership in Cincinnati, OH. Over the past few months we have participated in numerous opportunities to learn from Strive, most recently we...
MEDIA MENTIONS
GCO’s Healthy Families Initiative announces #FatherhoodFriday: Celebrating the joy of being a dad
Being a dad is one of the greatest challenges in life, but it often gets overlooked. Though the everyday joys of being a father are overshadowed in pop culture by fast-paced news and Hollywood gossip, that doesn't mean celebrity dads aren't talking about how their...
Could charter schools improve the performance of surrounding schools?
Advocates for school choice have long argued that charters encourage higher performance among all public schools. But is it possible that local students could benefit from the presence of a charter school even if they never go to school there? According to a...
Report: A declining birth rate could spell trouble for the economy
When the great recession hit in 2007, economists weren't surprised to find that young couples held off on starting families. However, ten years later, they've found that the birth rate hasn't yet bounced back. Now, some experts fear that fewer babies could equal...
You can’t fix the past, you can improve the future
John F. Kennedy once stated “Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future.” But according to a new study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation called 2017 Kids Count Data Book, the future for Georgia’s children appears dismal.
Freakonomics: ‘Poverty and family structure are intertwined’
Freakonomics is the popular podcast that aims to expose the "hidden side of everything" by applying economics research to everyday realities. In a recent episode, they sought to understand why marriage is on the decline. Their conclusion was staggering: there is a...
GCO Goes to the Nation’s Capitol
On June 28th, GCO's Eric Cochling traveled to Washington, D.C. to be part of the Full House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform meeting, which took an in-depth look into "programs and legislation aimed at rehabilitating offenders, facilitating a successful...
Three Keys to Millennial Success in Georgia
By: Randy Hicks and W. Bradford Wilcox Although young men and women are taking what seems like a dizzying array of paths into adulthood these days, one path stands out as maximizing their shot at the American Dream: what scholars Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill have...
GCO Seeking Experienced Communications Manager
GCO is seeking an experienced Communications Manager to manage and execute on our communications strategy and day-to-day communications needs in cooperation with other team members. We are especially interested in candidates who want to grow with the organization and...
