Friday Facts: September 25, 2026

If you want to see why school choice matters, look at a family who had every choice available and still got it wrong. In a recent New York Times Magazine essay, Nikole Hannah-Jones writes about sending her daughter to a struggling, high-poverty Brooklyn school on principle, and what that decision cost her child. It’s an honest and surprisingly revealing piece, though not in the way she intended.

What stayed with me, though, weren’t the parents. It was the thousands of other children at similar schools whose families never had the option to leave.

Read about the story in this week’s commentary.

– Kyle Wingfield- Kyle Wingfield

Friday’s Freshest 🗞️

The growth of the data center industry has been met with frequent criticism and political pushback, particularly due to its use of natural resources. One of those recurring criticisms concerns the amount of water that data centers use in their cooling systems.

Georgia has averaged roughly a million new residents per decade, drawn by an economy that rewards showing up and doing the work, but what a paycheck is worth isn’t set by the employer alone. Here are five key questions that show where Georgia still has room to improve.

Arkansas billed its Medicaid expansion as the conservative alternative, using federal dollars to buy private insurance for able-bodied adults instead of enrolling them in traditional Medicaid. But the experiment produced steep cost overruns and no improvement in the state’s health outcomes.

Most people are probably aware that where they receive their healthcare affects the price. But perhaps less intuitive is that the payment can change depending on who owns the healthcare facility.

Peach Picks 🍑

Italian tire manufacturer Pirelli will add 1,000 jobs and invest $1.2 billion in Georgia as part of an agreement announced by Gov. Kemp on Tuesday. The company currently employs 234 Georgians, according to Kemp. 

Gov. Kemp announced that the state has again secured the No. 1 state for business ranking by Area Development magazine for the 13th year in a row, demonstrating an unmatched consistency in creating a successful, business-friendly environment.

Google will pay a premium for new electricity from planned upgrades to Georgia Power’s nuclear reactors, a deal the companies say will ease the cost for other customers. Upgrades to two reactors each at Plant Vogtle and Plant Hatch would add about 100 megawatts of emission-free power to a grid already expanding rapidly to serve data centers.

Columbus Technical College is a founding member of a new national coalition to address the shortage of skilled tradespeople. The Building Future Skilled Trades Coalition, launched by the Lowe’s Foundation, is backed by more than 75 educators, businesses and workforce organizations.

American Idol will move from Hollywood to Georgia, production and distribution company Fremantle confirmed to NBCLA. Georgia offers a 20% base transferable film tax credit, plus an additional 10% “uplift” for providing promotional value to the state for eligible projects spending a minimum of $500,000.

Featured Video🎥

In this video, we explain why Georgia’s physician shortage persists, how the current licensing system created an unnecessary bottleneck, and what Senate Bill 427 changes.

Quote of the Week 🌟

Lincoln’s words capture a principle at the heart of limited government: when individuals can solve problems for themselves, government should be cautious about stepping in. 

Free markets depend on that same confidence in people: the belief that individuals often make better decisions than distant institutions. 

Government has necessary responsibilities, but its reach need not extend into every area of economic and civic life. Leaving room for private initiative encourages stewardship and innovation. 

Lincoln’s observation offers a useful reminder that preserving liberty sometimes means recognizing not only what government can do, but what people can do better themselves.