About CEG

Ensuring all Georgia children have access to a quality education...

Why the Center exists:

It is unjust for poor students to be trapped in poorly performing schools.  When a child is cut off from educational opportunity, he is also essentially cut off from economic opportunity, which often creates and perpetuates cycles of poverty for families.

School choice already exists -- for families of means.  With options such as private schools, homeschooling, or simply buying a house in a better school district, middle and upper income families are able to make decisions to secure the best education for their children.  Poor families are not likely to have as many options.

School choice improves the academic performance of at-risk children, promotes parental involvement, and fosters competition and accountability in public school systems that allow increased parental choice.

The Center’s four areas of focus include:

    1. Working on the “supply side” of education—with private schools, charter schools, student 
        scholarship organizations (SSOs), the Georgia Department of Education, and the Georgia 
        Department of Revenue — to make sure that the education offered to Georgia’s students is the 
        best it can be.  To this end, the Center will work with an Advisory Board to develop and promulgate
        standards by which SSOs should be operated and work to advance the work (including 
        fundraising) of SSOs meeting or exceeding the Center’s standards.

    2. Working on the “demand side” of education—with families and students—to make sure they have 
        access to education options and the information needed to choose the best environment for their 
        children.  

    3. Working on the research side of education—evaluating choice programs, standardized test 
        scores, education spending, etc.—so that leaders and policy makers have the information they 
        need to make the best policy changes for improving education.

    4. Working as the support and coordinating force for future school choice efforts in Georgia — by 
        serving as a common point of contact for groups and individuals interested in being involved in 
        advancing school choice in the state and by helping to direct those efforts.