A top state for talent needs a nation-leading data system for its students
Georgia has ranked as a top state for business for over a decade. Favorable tax and economic development incentives, as well as targeted investments in high-growth sectors like aerospace, cybersecurity and transportation, have strengthened Georgia’s position in the global economy.
To maintain Georgia’s status as an economic powerhouse, Gov. Brian Kemp launched the Top State for Talent initiative.
At its core, Top State for Talent creates a framework for Georgia’s education and workforce agencies to work together to address misalignment between education offerings and employer needs.
This gap between preparation and readiness is most noticeable for recent high school graduates. Over 87% of students in the Class of 2025 graduated high school, an all-time high. However, available postsecondary readiness metrics suggest that earning a high school diploma is not always a strong indicator of post-secondary readiness.
The Georgia Partnership, in our recently released EdQuest Georgia State Plan, noted that the percentage of high school graduates that meet or exceed the ACT benchmarks on all four subtests — English, mathematics, reading, and science — is a more reliable indicator of readiness. And in 2025, only 30% of Georgia’s high school graduates who took the ACT demonstrated readiness in all four subjects. ACT’s longitudinal data show that 84% of students who demonstrated readiness in the four subjects ultimately earned associate or bachelor’s degrees. Only 39% of those who demonstrated readiness in none of the subjects did the same.
While the ACT benchmarks are valuable as a college readiness metric, not all high school graduates take the ACT. Consequently, it is up to state and community leaders to develop more inclusive and sophisticated measures to evaluate the effectiveness of Georgia’s education and workforce strategies.
Legislators and state agency leaders alike recognized Georgia lacked the appropriate data to evaluate the health of the state’s talent pipelines as well as a unified strategy to guide investments. In response, the General Assembly, during the 2026 legislative session, enacted House Bill 1302 — the Education and Workforce Strategy Act.
The act creates the Governor’s Office of Education and Workforce Strategy, charging the agency with creating a statewide education and workforce development plan. The act also creates the Education Data Governance Board, a cross-agency group tasked with creating a single, statewide education and workforce data system that will be housed within GOEWS. Partnering with the state’s education and workforce agencies, GOEWS can create a foundation for evaluating the impact of current education and workforce investments and forecasting future needs through real-time modeling.
Creating a seamless talent development strategy and reducing the gap between preparation and readiness is a step in the right direction for Georgia. Developing better, more comprehensive data systems will play a major role in Georgia achieving its education and workforce goals.
Looking ahead to 2027, new state leadership can capitalize on the foundation laid by establishing GOEWS as the primary vehicle for maintaining Georgia’s position as a national leader in talent development, economic opportunity and quality of life.
Matt Smith is director of policy and research for the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education. Contact him to learn more about the EdQuest Georgia initiative.
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