50 Essential Georgia Public Education Leaders to Follow

Last updated: June 2026

Georgia's public education system is at a turning point. The state has achieved a record-high graduation rate, its lottery-funded pre-kindergarten programme has been rated among the best in the country, and students outperformed national averages on the SAT and ACT in 2024. These are genuine achievements, and the leaders who produced them deserve to be widely known.

As of June 2026, Georgia also faces a contested state superintendent election, a 40-year-old school funding formula under increasing scrutiny, third-grade reading proficiency that hovers below 50% on state assessments, and chronic absenteeism rates that remain elevated in many communities. The leaders shaping what comes next are working inside all of this at once.

This guide brings together 50 of the people most worth following in Georgia public education right now. They include district superintendents serving communities from Atlanta to Valdosta, classroom teachers who have earned national recognition, university researchers training the next generation of Georgia school leaders, nonprofit executives developing thousands of educators annually, and policy analysts challenging the assumptions underneath the state's education funding model.

Rather than recycling the same handful of names that appear on every list, I compiled this directory to surface the leaders who are doing consequential work in Georgia specifically, and who genuinely deserve to be part of every serious conversation about the state's public schools.

Georgia serves approximately 1.9 million public school students across 181 school districts. According to the National Education Association's 2026 ranking report, Georgia ranked 5th in the country in average daily attendance and 21st in average teacher salaries. The state is also the 7th largest in English learner student population nationally, a demographic reality that shapes everything from curriculum design to family engagement strategy.

If you follow only a handful of voices from this list, you will have a more complete and honest picture of where Georgia public education is heading than almost any single publication can provide.

For school leadership teams navigating the human side of these challenges, including difficult conversations, team alignment, and the culture decisions that determine whether strategy sticks, email jonno@consultclarity.org. Jonno White, bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out and host of The Leadership Conversations Podcast, works with school leadership teams around the world.

Why Does Georgia Public Education Matter to the Rest of the Country?

Georgia's public education system sits at the centre of national debates that extend well beyond state lines. The Georgia Promise Scholarship Act, which launched in the 2025-26 school year with $141 million in state funding, is the most closely watched school voucher programme in the South, and its outcomes will influence similar legislation in dozens of other states.

Georgia was also the first state to achieve top rankings in preschool quality while simultaneously expanding school choice legislation, making it a genuine test case for whether these approaches can coexist or whether they compete for the same public dollars.

The state's teacher shortage is part of a national crisis. A 2024 RAND Corporation study found that 73 percent of principals reported working more than 50 hours per week, and Georgia's educator pipeline faces the same pressures as every other state system. The Georgia Department of Education's Registered Teacher Apprenticeship Programme, which enrolled 132 teaching apprentices across 29 school districts in its first year, is among the more innovative responses to that pipeline problem currently running anywhere in the country.

Georgia's geographic and demographic diversity also makes it unusually instructive. The challenges facing a small rural district in South Georgia are genuinely different from those facing a metro Atlanta system with 100,000 students, yet both operate under the same Quality Basic Education funding formula that has not been substantially revised since 1985. Understanding how leaders navigate that reality illuminates how similar structural constraints play out in states across the country.

For school leadership teams wanting to translate the ideas of the leaders on this list into practical team and culture decisions, Jonno White delivers keynotes and facilitation sessions designed to help leadership teams move from insight to action. Email jonno@consultclarity.org to explore what that looks like for your school or organisation.

How This List Was Compiled

Every person on this list was selected on three criteria. First, genuine and current contribution to Georgia public education, whether through district leadership, published research, classroom practice, policy advocacy, or public education media. Second, active and substantive professional engagement in 2025 or 2026, so the people on this list are the ones actively shaping the conversation right now, not those whose significant contributions belong to a previous decade.

Third, diversity of role, geography, and approach, so the list genuinely represents the breadth of people influencing what happens in Georgia classrooms and district offices, from Savannah to Rome to Athens to Valdosta.

Category One: Statewide Leaders and Policymakers

The people who work at the intersection of Georgia education policy, state government, and statewide organisation leadership shape the conditions inside which every classroom, district, and school must operate. These are the voices setting the direction for over 1.9 million Georgia students.

Statewide Georgia education leadership means navigating a structural reality that is unlike most other states. The state superintendent is a popularly elected position, which means education policy is inseparable from electoral politics. The Quality Basic Education formula that funds every school district is nearly four decades old. The Georgia Pre-K programme, funded by lottery revenue and serving more than 71,000 four-year-olds, is simultaneously a national model and a politically contested investment. The leaders in this category are working inside all of that complexity daily.

1. Richard Woods | Georgia Department of Education | State School Superintendent

Richard Woods has served as Georgia's State School Superintendent since January 2015, making him one of the longest-serving elected education officials in the country and the most consequential single policymaker in Georgia's public school system. His department oversees the funding, standards, accountability, and support systems for all 181 of the state's K-12 public school districts. During his tenure, Georgia has achieved a record-high graduation rate and seen measurable improvements on the state's College and Career Ready Performance Index across multiple years.

Woods has made early literacy a central priority. The Georgia Early Literacy Act, enacted during his tenure, fundamentally restructured how reading is taught in the state's early grades, aligning instruction with the science of reading and requiring structured literacy approaches in K-3 classrooms. His LinkedIn posts frequently address the practical implementation of these initiatives at the district and school level, making him a genuinely useful follow for anyone tracking how state policy lands in classrooms. He is currently running for a fourth term in the 2026 state superintendent election.

2. Amy Jacobs | Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL) | Commissioner

Amy Jacobs has served as Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning since 2014, overseeing an annual budget of over $900 million and the administration of Georgia's nationally recognised Pre-K programme. In 2025, Georgia invested $97.6 million in early childhood education improvements that included pay parity for pre-K teachers, smaller class sizes, and expanded programme capacity. That investment contributed to Georgia being ranked among the top preschool programmes in the nation in the 2025 State of Preschool Yearbook. The programme currently serves more than 71,000 four-year-olds statewide.

Jacobs also oversees child care licensing, subsidised child care access through the Childcare and Parent Services programme, and the Quality Rated system that helps families identify high-quality child care providers. Her work sits at the intersection of workforce development, child development research, and state budget policy, making her an essential voice for anyone who believes that the foundation of a strong K-12 system is built before kindergarten.

3. Dana Rickman | Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education | President and CEO

Dana Rickman serves as President and CEO of the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education, the state's premier cross-sector education policy organisation, which she joined in 2011 and has led since 2021. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Georgia State University and has served as the primary author of the Georgia Partnership's annual Top Ten Issues to Watch report for more than a decade. That report is distributed widely across the state and is one of the most reliable annual syntheses of what Georgia education policymakers are actually debating.

In 2026, Rickman launched the EdQuest Georgia Coalition, a cross-sector initiative inviting leaders across business, government, education, and community to pursue coordinated solutions to Georgia's most persistent education challenges. Her approach to education policy is grounded in research, practical coalition-building, and a willingness to hold multiple stakeholder perspectives simultaneously. She is the kind of voice that helps make sense of why Georgia education policy moves the way it does.

4. Valarie Wilson | Georgia School Boards Association | Executive Director

Valarie Wilson has served as Executive Director of the Georgia School Boards Association since 2015, leading an organisation that supports the governance of every one of Georgia's school boards and serves as one of the state's primary voices for public education advocacy at the General Assembly. Wilson brings a distinctive background to the role: she was previously a school board member for the City Schools of Decatur, served as GSBA President, ran as the 2014 Democratic nominee for State School Superintendent, and was Executive Director of the Atlanta BeltLine Partnership before coming to GSBA.

Her leadership at GSBA has expanded the organisation's student voice programmes, governance training, and advocacy capacity significantly. Her 2025 commentary on the GSBA Youth Advisory Council captured a guiding principle of her work: the best education policy is shaped when students are part of the conversation. She is among the most experienced education governance voices in the state.

5. Ben Wiggins | Georgia Association of Educational Leaders | Executive Director

Ben Wiggins serves as Executive Director of the Georgia Association of Educational Leaders, the statewide umbrella organisation that unifies seven professional associations for school leaders across Georgia. GAEL serves more than 1,800 school leaders and has been a consistent voice for educational leadership development and policy advocacy in the state for 46 years.

Wiggins brings deep operational credibility to the role. Before joining GAEL, he served as superintendent of both the Thomasville City and Colquitt County School Districts, as principal of Pelham City High School and Oconee County High School, and as a past president of the Georgia Association of Secondary School Principals. He also hosts the GAEL UnscriptED podcast, which goes behind the headlines and handbooks to surface unfiltered insights from Georgia's top educational leaders and innovators.

6. Leslie Hazle Bussey | Georgia Leadership Institute for School Improvement (GLISI) | CEO and Executive Director

Leslie Hazle Bussey is CEO and Executive Director of GLISI, the Georgia Leadership Institute for School Improvement, a nonprofit she has led for more than a decade. GLISI serves more than 1,500 school and district leaders annually across more than 50 Georgia school districts, providing leadership development, consulting, and coaching grounded in research on how adults change practice inside organisations. Before GLISI, Bussey directed research in the Learning-Centered Leadership group at the Southern Regional Education Board.

GLISI's Hidden Heroes recognition programme, which annually identifies and celebrates Georgia educators whose impact on their communities is rarely captured in standard accountability data, has become one of the more widely shared celebrations of Georgia public school workers in the state. Bussey's framing of school leadership development consistently centres on the internal development work that leaders must do, not only the external strategy work, which distinguishes GLISI's approach from more technically focused programmes.

Category Two: Metro Atlanta District Leaders

Metro Atlanta is home to five of Georgia's largest school districts and serves approximately one third of the state's public school students. The decisions made by district leaders in Fulton, Cobb, Gwinnett, DeKalb, and Atlanta shape Georgia's education reputation nationally and influence policy debates at the state level.

7. Bryan Johnson | Atlanta Public Schools | Superintendent

Bryan Johnson serves as Superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools, where he leads approximately 50,000 students across 87 learning sites, including 59 neighbourhood schools and 19 charter schools. He was appointed in July 2024 and is implementing Back to the Basics 2030, APS's 2025-2030 strategic plan, which centres on academic excellence, college and career readiness, and community trust.

Before coming to Atlanta, Johnson served as superintendent of Hamilton County Schools in Tennessee, where the district became the fastest-improving school system in the state. In 2021, he was named Tennessee Superintendent of the Year. Johnson brings an unusual background to urban district leadership: he spent time as a corporate executive at US Express Enterprises and as a strategic planning leader at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga before returning to K-12 education. His LinkedIn posts focus on accountability, community communication, and the practical work of leading a major urban district through a period of financial pressure.

8. Mike Looney | Fulton County Schools | Superintendent

Mike Looney has served as Superintendent of Fulton County Schools since June 2019, leading Georgia's fourth-largest district with nearly 90,000 students across 108 schools. In 2025, Fulton County Schools posted its strongest College and Career Readiness Index results to date, and in 2023 achieved its highest-ever graduation rate of 90.7%. Those results earned him recognition as Georgia's 2025 Superintendent of the Year by the Georgia School Superintendents Association.

Looney is a retired US Marine and a 28-year educator who previously served as superintendent in Tennessee and Alabama. His LinkedIn presence is active and substantive, with regular posts on curriculum decisions, district achievements, and his thoughts on public education policy.

9. Chris Ragsdale | Cobb County School District | Superintendent

Chris Ragsdale has served as Superintendent of Cobb County School District since 2014, making him the longest-serving superintendent among Georgia's largest metro districts. Cobb County is the second-largest school district in Georgia, with nearly 107,000 students and a $1.8 billion budget. Under his leadership, Cobb students have consistently performed above the state average in reading and mathematics across multiple grade levels, and 12 of 17 Cobb high schools have placed in the state's top 100.

Ragsdale is one of the most operationally experienced district leaders in Georgia, having previously served as the district's Chief Technology Officer and Deputy Superintendent for Operations. His tenure has also been marked by contested book-removal decisions that have generated significant community and national attention, making him a central figure in debates about school board governance, curriculum oversight, and the limits of local education authority in Georgia.

10. Alexandra Estrella | Gwinnett County Public Schools | Superintendent (incoming July 2026)

Alexandra Estrella will become Superintendent of Gwinnett County Public Schools in July 2026, leading Georgia's largest school district and the 14th-largest in the United States, serving approximately 180,000 students. She comes to Gwinnett from Norwalk Public Schools in Connecticut. Estrella is a first-generation Afro-Latina American with 26 years of experience in public education, and she is bilingual, a significant consideration in a Gwinnett district where roughly one quarter of students are multilingual learners.

Her Future Ready for All vision, which centres on data-driven leadership, empathy, equity, and effectiveness, shaped the Gwinnett Board of Education's decision to appoint her unanimously in March 2026. She was selected to lead one of the most culturally diverse school districts in the American South at a time when Georgia's largest district is seeking renewed stability.

11. Tarece Johnson-Morgan | Gwinnett County Board of Education | Board Member and Former Chair

Tarece Johnson-Morgan has served on the Gwinnett County Board of Education since January 2021 and served as Board Chair for two consecutive terms. She is an educational leader, author, and advocate with more than 25 years of experience in diversity, equity, inclusion, and multilingual education. She holds a BA from La Universidad del Sagrado Corazon in Puerto Rico, an MPA from Columbia University, an MBA from Emory University, and an EdD in Educational Leadership from Capella University.

Johnson-Morgan has been one of the most visible school board members in Georgia, both for her vocal advocacy for equitable education and for her role in the district's leadership transition, including the appointment of Alexandra Estrella. Her personal story, which includes experiencing homelessness and attending public schools throughout her K-12 years, informs her perspective on what public education must be for the families it serves.

12. Erika Mitchell | Atlanta Board of Education | Chair

Erika Mitchell serves as Chair of the Atlanta Board of Education, overseeing the governance of Atlanta Public Schools as it implements its 2025-2030 strategic plan under Superintendent Bryan Johnson. The Atlanta Board of Education governs one of Georgia's oldest and most watched school districts, and Mitchell's role as chair places her at the centre of major decisions around curriculum, budget, accountability, and community trust.

Atlanta Public Schools operates with a $1.79 billion budget and serves one of the most diverse urban student populations in the South. Mitchell's leadership of the board has coincided with a period of increased public accountability and a deliberate focus on academic fundamentals.

13. Norman Sauce III | DeKalb County School District | Interim Superintendent

Norman Sauce III has served as Interim Superintendent of the DeKalb County School District since October 2025, leading one of Georgia's largest districts during a complex leadership transition. Appointed on a one-year contract through November 2026, Sauce has 26 years of experience in public education, including roles as a teacher, principal, and the district's Chief of Student Services before stepping into the interim superintendent role. His deep familiarity with DeKalb's communities, schools, and systems has brought operational stability to a district navigating a significant governance challenge.

DeKalb County School District serves more than 90,000 students at 138 schools and is one of the most racially and economically diverse districts in Georgia. Sauce's approach to the interim role has been characterised by community listening, early childhood literacy focus, and operational stabilisation.

Category Three: Regional and Smaller District Leaders

Georgia's education system extends far beyond metro Atlanta. The state has 181 school districts, and the leaders of smaller and mid-size districts routinely produce some of the most innovative and replicable district work in the country. Geographic diversity in this list reflects the genuine importance of South Georgia, the coast, the mountains, and the urban systems outside Atlanta to the health of the state's education system overall.

14. Marc Feuerbach | Cartersville City Schools | Superintendent / 2026 Georgia Superintendent of the Year

Marc Feuerbach was named Georgia's 2026 Superintendent of the Year by both the Georgia School Boards Association and the Georgia School Superintendents Association, making him the state's representative at the National Superintendent of the Year competition. He has led Cartersville City Schools since 2018, during which time the district has achieved record-high graduation rates, strengthened community partnerships, and expanded student support systems. His career spans 23 years in education, including roles as a special education teacher, assistant principal, and principal.

Feuerbach describes his leadership process as listen, learn, and lead, in that order, and the school board members and community leaders who work with him consistently describe a superintendent who embeds himself in the data and relationships of his district before making major decisions.

15. Craig Lockhart | Valdosta City Schools | Superintendent

Craig Lockhart has served as Superintendent of Valdosta City Schools since 2023, leading a South Georgia district with nearly 8,300 students. He brings a distinctive profile to the role: he is nationally board-certified in science, has consulted with school systems internationally on STEM education, has presented school improvement strategies to state and national audiences, and is the author of the book School Genetics: A Blueprint for Saving Public Schools.

Lockhart is one of the more publicly articulate superintendents in Georgia's smaller systems, with an active LinkedIn presence where he regularly engages with questions of school improvement, student outcomes, and community partnership.

16. S. Denise Watts | Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools | Superintendent

S. Denise Watts has served as Superintendent of the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System since 2017, leading the largest district on Georgia's coast with more than 35,000 students across 50 schools. Before coming to Savannah, she served as Chief of Schools for the Houston Independent School District in Texas. Her tenure in Savannah has been marked by a consistent focus on student achievement, community engagement, and the particular challenges of leading a diverse coastal district.

Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools is one of the most historically significant school systems in Georgia, serving a community with deep ties to the African American education tradition and a student body that reflects the demographic complexity of the Georgia coast.

17. Fred Longgrear | Candler County School District | Superintendent and GSSA President

Fred "Bubba" Longgrear has served as Superintendent of Candler County Schools in Metter, Georgia for more than nine years and currently serves as President of the Georgia School Superintendents Association. He is one of the most prominent voices for rural school leadership in the state, and his campaign for Georgia State Superintendent in 2026 brought national attention to the specific challenges facing small South Georgia districts. His campaign secured the endorsement of Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns and raised more than $239,000, the most of any candidate in the Republican primary.

Longgrear's platform centres on what he describes as a leadership crisis in Georgia public schools, particularly in districts where resources are thin. He was a 2026 Georgia Superintendent of the Year finalist. His voice has elevated rural education equity as a central issue in the state superintendent debate.

18. Mary Elizabeth Davis | Cherokee County School District | Superintendent

Mary Elizabeth Davis serves as Superintendent of Cherokee County School District, the fastest-growing district in North Georgia, and was a 2026 Georgia Superintendent of the Year finalist. Cherokee County serves more than 43,000 students across a community that has grown rapidly over the past decade, creating the particular challenge of building district infrastructure, school capacity, and teacher pipelines faster than most districts ever have to. Her record in Cherokee reflects a sustained focus on academic quality alongside operational growth.

19. Anton Anthony | Hancock County Schools | Superintendent

Anton Anthony serves as Superintendent of Hancock County Schools in Sparta, one of the most rural and economically distressed districts in Georgia's central region. He is a pastor and lifelong public educator who has served as a teacher, principal, district leader, and superintendent across Georgia and brings a community-rooted philosophy to district leadership that centres on expanding meaningful work and career pathways for students.

Anthony was a candidate in the 2026 Democratic primary for Georgia State Superintendent of Schools but did not win the nomination. Lydia Powell won that primary with 50.48 percent of the vote. His work in Hancock County has been guided by a belief that creativity, problem-solving, and adaptability are the most valuable skills public schools can develop, and that the structures of most school systems actively constrain rather than support that development.

20. Eric Holland | Rome City Schools | Superintendent

Eric Holland serves as Superintendent of Rome City Schools in Northwest Georgia and was recognised by the Georgia School Superintendents Association with the Marvin E. Lewis Sr. Trailblazer Award. Rome City Schools is a mid-size urban system in a community with deep manufacturing and healthcare industry ties, and Holland has focused on aligning the district's curriculum and career pathways with the specific workforce needs of the Rome-Floyd County region. His leadership has been marked by a willingness to build partnerships across sectors that extend the district's capacity well beyond its formal budget.

21. Alice Mashburn | Gordon County Schools | Superintendent

Alice Mashburn became Superintendent of Gordon County Schools in July 2023 after 23 years of service in the same district, where she had served as a teacher, media specialist, graduation coach, data coordinator, assistant principal, director of technology, director of human resources, and assistant superintendent. Her appointment to the superintendent role reflected a board's confidence in deep institutional knowledge and community roots. In the 2024-25 school year, Gordon County Schools posted a 95.5% graduation rate, among the highest in Northwest Georgia.

Mashburn's leadership of Gordon County offers an instructive model for what sustained institutional commitment and operational depth can produce when combined with a superintendent who genuinely knows every part of the system she leads.

22. Trent North | Douglas County School System | Superintendent and 2023 Georgia Superintendent of the Year

Trent North has served as Superintendent of the Douglas County School System since 2017 and was named Georgia's 2023 Superintendent of the Year and a national Superintendent of the Year finalist. He leads a district of approximately 26,000 students west of Atlanta, where his Greatness Grows Here framework has produced consistent gains in student achievement, family engagement, and employee experience.

North's background is unusually diverse: he grew up in public housing in Carrollton, served for 25 years on the Carroll County Board of Commissioners, and began his education career as a paraprofessional before becoming the first African American principal in Carrollton City Schools. His posts on LinkedIn regularly engage with state education policy, teacher pipeline development, and the practical work of district improvement, making him one of the more substantive superintendent voices on the platform in Georgia.

Category Four: Association, Nonprofit, and Policy Leaders

The organisations that support, advocate for, and analyse Georgia public education outside the district structure are an essential part of the ecosystem. These leaders do not run school systems, but they shape the conditions inside which school systems operate.

23. Ashley Young | Georgia Budget and Policy Institute | Director of Education

Ashley Young serves as Director of Education at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, where she leads research and policy analysis on K-12 and early childhood education funding across Georgia. Her work, including the annual Georgia Education Primer and multiple detailed analyses of the state's QBE funding formula, provides some of the most rigorous independent analysis of Georgia's education budget available. GBPI has been a consistent voice for fully funding the QBE formula and for expanding need-based aid for Georgia students.

Young has also led GBPI's district superintendent survey, which collects direct feedback from Georgia school leaders about the resource gaps their districts face and provides policymakers with data that the state's own reporting often does not capture.

24. Kevin Gaines | Hart County High School / Georgia Association of Educational Leaders | Principal and GAEL President 2025-26

Kevin Gaines serves as Principal of Hart County High School and as President of the Georgia Association of Educational Leaders for the 2025-26 school year. His presidency represents the kind of building-level leadership perspective that statewide organisations often struggle to maintain alongside their policy and systems focus. Hart County High School, in the rural northeast Georgia community of Hartwell, is the kind of school that often gets overlooked in Georgia education conversations dominated by metro Atlanta districts.

25. Craig Harper | Professional Association of Georgia Educators (PAGE) | Executive Director

Craig Harper serves as Executive Director of the Professional Association of Georgia Educators, the state's largest educator association with more than 95,000 members. PAGE provides legal coverage, legislative advocacy, and professional learning to its members and is one of the most active voices in Georgia education policy at the General Assembly. Harper's leadership of PAGE involves navigating the political complexity of representing such a large and diverse membership on issues that range from teacher pay to curriculum policy to school safety.

26. John Zauner | Georgia School Superintendents Association | Executive Director

John Zauner serves as Executive Director of the Georgia School Superintendents Association, which represents Georgia's 181 district superintendents and provides professional development, policy advocacy, and networking for the leaders of every public school district in the state. The GSSA Superintendent of the Year programme, which Zauner administers, is one of the most watched annual recognitions in Georgia education.

27. Brecca Pope | Thomas County Schools / Professional Association of Georgia Educators | PAGE President 2025-26

Brecca Pope serves as President of the Professional Association of Georgia Educators for the 2025-26 school year, a role she holds while remaining an educator with Thomas County Schools in South Georgia. Her dual presence, as both a practising educator and the president of Georgia's largest educator association, gives her an unusual combination of classroom credibility and statewide platform. Thomas County is a rural South Georgia district, and Pope's perspective on Georgia education policy is shaped by the specific pressures and possibilities of rural public school teaching.

28. Otha Thornton | National Parent Teacher Association (former President) | Georgia Education Advocate

Otha Thornton is the first African American male to have served as President of the National PTA, a position he held after serving on Georgia PTA's board of directors as legislative chair and as an advisory group member for the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education. He is a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel and a Bronze Star Medal recipient. He ran in Georgia's 2026 Democratic primary for State Superintendent of Schools, receiving nearly 200,000 votes.

His advocacy consistently centres on the structural underfunding of Georgia's public schools, particularly the QBE formula that has not been substantially revised since 1985, and the need for wraparound supports for students whose challenges extend beyond what schools can address on their own. His combination of military leadership, national PTA experience, and community advocacy gives him a perspective on public education that is genuinely distinctive among Georgia education voices.

29. Mitch Young | Forsyth County Schools | Superintendent

Mitch Young serves as Superintendent of Forsyth County Schools, one of the fastest-growing and highest-performing districts in Georgia. Forsyth County has consistently ranked among the top school districts in the state on academic achievement measures and has managed extraordinary enrolment growth while maintaining instructional quality.

30. Kenneth Bradshaw | Richmond County School System | Superintendent

Kenneth Bradshaw serves as Superintendent of the Richmond County School System in Augusta, Georgia, leading a district of nearly 30,000 students in one of the state's most historically significant cities. Richmond County serves a diverse community that includes Davidson Magnet School, one of the top-ranked high schools in Georgia. His leadership of a mid-size urban system in the Augusta region provides an important perspective on public education outside both metro Atlanta and rural Georgia.

31. Lydia Powell | Hampton High School, Henry County Schools | Assistant Principal and 2026 Democratic Nominee for State Superintendent

Lydia Powell serves as an Assistant Principal at Hampton High School in Henry County and won the 2026 Democratic primary for Georgia State Superintendent of Schools with 50.48 percent of the vote, making her the Democratic nominee for the November general election. With 26 years of experience in education, including 11 years in leadership roles, she brings a building-level practitioner's perspective to the race. Her platform centres on expanding access to early learning, increasing support for teachers including mental health services, and strengthening rural communities.

Category Five: University Researchers and Teacher Educators

The universities that train Georgia's teachers and school leaders are among the most consequential actors in the state's education ecosystem, yet they are often the least visible to the practitioners those institutions serve.

32. Shelby Cosner | University of Georgia College of Education | Dr. Morrill M. Hall Endowed Chair in Educational Administration

Shelby Cosner holds the Dr. Morrill M. Hall Endowed Chair in Educational Administration at the University of Georgia's Mary Frances Early College of Education, where she joined in August 2024. She also serves as Program Coordinator for the PhD in Educational Administration and Policy and as President of the University Council for Educational Administration. Her research focuses on institutional change, school improvement, leader development, and the preparation of educational leaders for high-stakes reform contexts.

Cosner has a forthcoming book from Harvard Education Press in 2026 examining the continuous improvement of educational leader preparation programmes, which reflects a career-long commitment to not just studying school improvement but improving the processes by which the people who lead that improvement are themselves developed.

33. Juliann McBrayer | Georgia Southern University | Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Co-Director, NYAR Research Centre

Juliann McBrayer is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at Georgia Southern University and Co-Director of the National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Research Centre, where she leads interdisciplinary research on school leadership, student resilience, multi-tiered support systems, and principal preparation. She directs the university's Educational Leadership master's and specialist programmes, preparing practising and aspiring principals for Georgia's Coastal, Southeast, and South Georgia school systems.

Her research output through 2025-26 spans peer-reviewed journals across the educational leadership field, and her work with Georgia Southern's partnerships across regional school districts makes her one of the more practice-connected university-based educational leadership voices in the state.

34. M. Brian Blake | Georgia State University | President

M. Brian Blake has served as President of Georgia State University since June 2021, becoming the institution's first Black president in its then 114-year history. GSU is one of the most consequential teacher preparation institutions in Georgia, producing graduates who lead classrooms and school offices across the state. Under Blake's leadership, GSU has continued to advance its national reputation for innovation in student success, with particular attention to closing equity gaps for first-generation and low-income students.

Category Six: Education Media and Content Creators

Not all education leadership happens inside a school or district office. The voices that amplify, document, and interpret what is happening in Georgia public education play a critical role in connecting practitioners across the state's 181 districts.

35. Steven Miletto | North Georgia RESA | Executive Director and Podcast Host

Steven Miletto serves as Executive Director of the North Georgia RESA (Regional Educational Service Agency) and hosts the Teaching Learning Leading K-12 podcast, which has produced more than 330 episodes since 2013 and is one of the longest-running practitioner education podcasts in the country. A Georgia educator for 38 years, he served as Georgia Principal of the Year in 2009 and was a finalist for NASSP/MetLife National Principal of the Year in 2010. His podcast is updated twice weekly, making it one of the most consistent sources of educator-focused content in the state.

36. Ashley Mengwasser | Georgia Public Broadcasting | Host, Writer, and Executive Producer, Classroom Conversations

Ashley Mengwasser is the host, writer, and executive producer of Classroom Conversations, the award-winning podcast produced in partnership by the Georgia Department of Education and Georgia Public Broadcasting. An 11-time Emmy Award winner, she has built one of Georgia's most distinctive education media platforms through her capacity to make genuinely practitioner-relevant content entertaining and accessible. The show's eighth season, currently airing in 2026, focuses on student attendance and chronic absenteeism, two of the most pressing and underreported challenges in Georgia public education.

37. Vicki Davis | Cool Cat Teacher LLC / Westwood Schools | Classroom Teacher, IT Director, and Podcaster

Vicki Davis, known professionally as the Cool Cat Teacher, is a full-time classroom teacher and IT Director at Westwood Schools in Camilla, Georgia, who has also built one of the most widely followed education media platforms in the world. She hosts the 10 Minute Teacher podcast, contributes to Edutopia, authors the Cool Cat Teacher blog, and was recognised by EdTech Magazine as among its 30 K-12 IT Influencers to Follow in 2025. LinkedIn named her a Top Education Voice in 2020.

Davis is unusual in that she maintains a full-time classroom role while producing content that reaches educators on every continent. Her South Georgia home base gives her a direct connection to the realities of rural Georgia classroom teaching that many education influencers do not have.

38. Lee Green | Georgia Educational Technology Conference (GaETC) | Podcast Host, GaETC: The Podcast

Lee Green hosts the GaETC podcast, produced by and for participants in the Georgia Educational Technology Conference, one of the largest educational technology events in the South. The podcast has been active through the 2025-26 school year and documents conversations with educators and innovators from across Georgia's technology-in-education community. For educators who want to stay connected to what is happening in Georgia educational technology between annual conference cycles, the GaETC podcast is one of the most consistent sources of practitioner-relevant content.

Category Seven: Classroom Voices and Teacher Leaders

The most direct influence on what students experience in Georgia's public schools comes from the teachers and building leaders closest to those students every day. The people in this category have earned statewide and national recognition for their classroom practice, and many are among the most active voices for the teaching profession in Georgia.

39. Rachel Kinsaul | Morgan County High School | Agricultural Science Teacher and 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year

Rachel Kinsaul is the 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year and a 2024 Milken Educator Award winner, teaching agricultural science to students in grades 9-12 at Morgan County High School in Madison, Georgia. Her teaching is grounded in a conviction that preparing students to be productive community members is the most important job a teacher can do. She holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Agriculture from the University of Georgia and was named the 2025 College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences Outstanding Alumni. As Georgia's 2026 Teacher of the Year, she is also a National Teacher of the Year finalist.

As Georgia's 2026 Teacher of the Year, she has been serving as a statewide advocate for the teaching profession, appearing before the Georgia General Assembly on teacher retention policy and speaking publicly about what it takes to attract and keep great teachers in rural Georgia schools.

40. Holly Witcher | White County Schools | Teacher and 2025 Georgia Teacher of the Year

Holly Witcher is the 2025 Georgia Teacher of the Year, a 23-year educator who was named Teacher of the Year in two separate school districts across two separate decades. She teaches kindergarten through second grade, and her recognition as the state's top educator reflects the sustained community she has built across nearly a quarter century in Georgia classrooms. Her experience with the Georgia Teacher of the Year programme has given her a deeper perspective on how education policy lands in actual classrooms than most statewide advocates possess.

41. Kimberly Brown Moody | Newton College and Career Academy | AP Teacher and 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year Finalist

Kimberly Brown Moody teaches 11th-grade Advanced Placement Language and Composition and 12th-grade Multicultural Literature and Composition at Newton College and Career Academy, and was a 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year finalist. Her commitment to literacy and student-centred learning is grounded in a belief that students can envision and achieve futures they may not yet have imagined for themselves.

42. Jenny Ritchotte | Camden Middle School | ELA Teacher and 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year Finalist

Jenny Ritchotte teaches English language arts to sixth graders at Camden Middle School in Southeast Georgia's Camden County, and was a 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year finalist. Her approach to teaching is shaped by a genuine investment in seeing the potential of every student and understanding what each individual student needs to be successful, a philosophy she has built concrete differentiated and personalised practices around.

43. Tracey Woodcock | Lee County High School Ninth Grade Campus | Biology and Environmental Science Teacher and 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year Finalist

Tracey Woodcock teaches biology and environmental science at Lee County High School's Ninth Grade Campus in South Georgia, and was a 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year finalist. Her work in environmental science is particularly relevant given Georgia's changing agricultural and ecological landscape, and her presence on the TOTY finalist list represents the South Georgia rural communities that depend on strong science teachers.

44. Laura Ray | Berrien Elementary School | 5th-Grade Teacher and 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year Finalist

Laura Ray is a fifth-grade teacher at Berrien Elementary School in South Georgia's Berrien County, teaching mathematics, science, and social studies to her students, and was a 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year finalist. Multi-content elementary teachers in rural districts carry instructional loads and pastoral responsibilities that are genuinely different from those of secondary content specialists.

Ray's recognition as a state finalist reflects the difficulty and importance of elementary teaching in communities where school is the primary hub of community learning and development.

45. Charles Garner | Rockdale Magnet School for Science and Technology, Conyers | 11th-12th Grade Mathematics Teacher and 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year Finalist

Charles Garner teaches 11th and 12th grade mathematics at Rockdale Magnet School for Science and Technology in Conyers, and was a 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year finalist. He holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Mathematics from Georgia State University and a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Johannesburg, making him one of the most academically credentialled mathematics teachers in the state's recent Teacher of the Year history. He is a member of the Georgia Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

46. Beth Taylor | 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year Finalist

Beth Taylor was a 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year finalist, recognised by the Georgia Department of Education for exemplary classroom practice. As one of the ten finalists selected from district-level Teacher of the Year winners across Georgia, her inclusion reflects sustained excellence in her classroom and school community.

47. Christie Akers | Northside High School, Muscogee County School District | AP Teacher and Lead Teacher Support Coach and 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year Finalist

Christie Akers teaches AP Seminar, AP Research, and Methodology at Northside High School in the Muscogee County School District in Columbus, and was a 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year finalist. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Master of Education in Secondary English Language Arts from Columbus State University, as well as a Teacher Leadership Education Specialist degree from Valdosta State University. She also serves as Lead Teacher Support Coach at Northside High School, mentoring new educators entering the profession.

48. Brandi Neal | 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year Finalist

Brandi Neal was a 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year finalist, recognised for outstanding classroom practice and selected from among district Teachers of the Year from across Georgia. Her presence among the state's top ten educators for 2025-26 reflects the kind of teaching that the Georgia Teacher of the Year programme exists to celebrate and amplify.

49. Jade Thomas | 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year Finalist

Jade Thomas was a 2026 Georgia Teacher of the Year finalist, recognised by the Georgia Department of Education for exceptional contributions to students and the teaching profession. Her selection as a state finalist reflects a teaching practice that other Georgia educators can learn from.

50. Marcus Scott | Lee Roy Myers Middle School, Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools | Principal and GASSP Principal of the Year Finalist 2025-26

Marcus Scott serves as Principal of Lee Roy Myers Middle School in Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools and was named a Georgia Association of Secondary School Principals finalist for Principal of the Year for the 2025-26 school year. His recognition as a state-level principal finalist reflects the depth of his impact on students, staff, and community at Myers Middle School and the broader Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools system.

Notable Voices We Almost Included

Several leaders were seriously considered for this list but ultimately did not make the final 50. Brian Hightower, who served as Superintendent of Cherokee County Schools before Mary Elizabeth Davis, earned multiple state superintendent finalist recognitions and remains an active voice in Georgia education. Samantha Fuhrey, former superintendent of Newton County Schools, built a strong record on student achievement and is well regarded across the state. Several other district leaders and researchers were considered but fell outside the final selection as the list was tightened around currency of contribution and depth of Georgia-specific impact.

Names that appear on almost every national education list, including Brene Brown, Adam Grant, and Simon Sinek, are genuine contributors to leadership thinking, and there is good reason they are widely read and cited. This list gave that space to Georgia-based voices who deserve to be just as well known among the people leading and working in Georgia's public schools.

What Are the Most Common Mistakes Georgia Education Leaders Make?

The most common mistake Georgia education leaders make is treating the state's recent achievement data as evidence that the structural challenges are resolved, rather than as progress that still sits on top of unresolved foundations. Georgia's record-high graduation rate and SAT performance coexist with third-grade reading proficiency below 50% and a school funding formula that dates to 1985. Treating success metrics as evidence that the system is working, rather than evidence of what is possible within existing constraints, is the mistake most likely to stall the improvement trajectory.

A second common mistake is pursuing district improvement without building the internal leadership capacity to sustain it. GLISI's work with more than 1,500 school leaders annually is grounded in a consistent finding: technical school improvement strategies fail when the leaders implementing them have not done the internal development work required to actually change practice.

Third, many Georgia education leaders underestimate the structural relationship between early childhood investment and K-12 outcomes. Georgia's Pre-K programme is one of the most significant education investments the state makes, but it serves only 4-year-olds and leaves enormous gaps in care quality and access for children ages zero to three. Leaders who are serious about improving third-grade reading scores need to be conversant with what is and is not happening in the years before a child enters a Georgia kindergarten.

Fourth, the failure to use community voices in genuine policy co-creation, rather than as consultation after decisions have already been made, consistently undermines the trust that sustainable school improvement requires. The leaders on this list who have produced the most consistent results are consistent about the value of genuine listening before deciding.

Fifth, neglecting the mental health and wellbeing of Georgia educators is a structural risk that data currently undersupports. Teacher shortages are not primarily a compensation problem in most Georgia districts. They are a working conditions problem that requires leaders willing to redesign the structures within which educators work, not just write larger salary cheques.

How Do You Start Following Georgia Public Education Leaders?

The first action is to follow the 10 leaders on this list most relevant to your role or community on LinkedIn, and to turn on notifications for their posts so that their content actually reaches you rather than disappearing into an algorithm. LinkedIn is currently where most of the substantive professional conversation among Georgia education leaders takes place.

Second, subscribe to the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education's Top Ten Issues to Watch report. It is published annually and is the most reliable synthesis of what Georgia education policymakers are actually debating each year.

Third, listen to at least one episode of the Classroom Conversations podcast from Georgia Public Broadcasting. It is the most consistent source of practitioner-focused content about Georgia classroom teaching available in audio form, and its current season on chronic absenteeism addresses one of the most pressing and least-understood challenges in Georgia public education right now.

Fourth, attend a GAEL, GSSA, or GSBA event if you have any connection to Georgia school leadership. The formal organisations that represent Georgia's principals, superintendents, and school board members are where many of the most substantive practitioner conversations happen.

Fifth, if you are a school leadership team navigating the internal team culture and people decisions that determine whether your external strategy actually works, email jonno@consultclarity.org. Jonno White, bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out (available at Amazon AU) and host of The Leadership Conversations Podcast (230+ episodes, 150+ countries), works with school leadership teams around the world. Whether you need a keynote, a Working Genius workshop, executive offsite facilitation, or individual executive coaching, reach out to jonno@consultclarity.org to explore what is possible.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the most influential public education leaders in Georgia?

The most influential Georgia public education leaders in 2025-26 include Richard Woods, the elected State School Superintendent who oversees all 181 public school districts; the superintendents of Georgia's five largest metro Atlanta districts, including Bryan Johnson (APS), Mike Looney (Fulton), Chris Ragsdale (Cobb), Alexandra Estrella (Gwinnett, incoming), and Norman Sauce III (DeKalb); and statewide organisation leaders like Dana Rickman of the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education and Leslie Hazle Bussey of GLISI.

What are the biggest issues in Georgia public education right now?

As of June 2026, Georgia public education is navigating several major challenges simultaneously. Third-grade reading proficiency sits below 50% on state assessments despite the Early Literacy Act. Chronic absenteeism remains elevated in many communities. The 1985 Quality Basic Education funding formula is under increasing scrutiny for its inability to address modern education costs and equity gaps.

The Georgia Promise Scholarship program launched in 2025-26 and its outcomes are being closely watched nationally. The state is also in the middle of a contested state superintendent election.

How was this list compiled?

Every person on this list was selected on three criteria: genuine and current contribution to Georgia public education; active professional engagement in 2025 or 2026; and diversity of role, geography, and approach across the state. The list deliberately moves beyond the names that appear in every national education conversation to surface the leaders doing consequential work specifically in Georgia's public schools right now.

Can I hire someone to facilitate leadership and team workshops for my Georgia school or district?

Yes. Jonno White, bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out and a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, works with school leadership teams across Australia, the United States, and internationally. He delivers keynotes on leadership, difficult conversations, and high-performing teams, facilitates Working Genius workshops, DISC sessions, and executive team offsites, and provides individual executive coaching for school and district leaders. Email jonno@consultclarity.org to explore what a session might look like for your team.

Who is the current Georgia State Superintendent of Schools?

As of June 2026, Richard Woods is the current Georgia State Superintendent of Schools. He has held the position since January 2015 and is seeking a fourth term in the November 2026 general election.

What is the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education?

The Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education is a non-partisan, cross-sector organisation founded in 1992 that brings together business, education, government, and civic leaders to improve education outcomes across Georgia. Under President and CEO Dana Rickman, it produces the annual Top Ten Issues to Watch report, runs the Georgia Education Policy Fellowship programme, and leads the EdQuest Georgia Coalition.

Final Thoughts

Georgia public education is not a single story. It is 181 different stories, shaped by local history, community demographics, state policy, and the specific decisions made by the leaders profiled here. The record-high graduation rate is real. The below-50% third-grade reading proficiency rate is also real. The teacher and principal pipeline challenges are real. The extraordinary work being done in classrooms from Hart County to Camden County is real.

The common thread connecting the most effective leaders on this list is not a particular philosophy or political alignment. It is a commitment to staying close to the reality of what is actually happening for students and teachers in their specific communities, and a willingness to make the decisions that reality demands rather than the decisions that would be easier or more popular.

If you follow the voices on this list, you will have a more complete and honest picture of where Georgia public education is heading than almost any single publication can provide.

For school leadership teams wanting support in translating great ideas into lasting culture change, book Jonno White to facilitate your next team offsite, deliver a keynote, or run a Working Genius workshop for your leadership team. Email jonno@consultclarity.org. Jonno works with schools and organisations around the world, and his bestselling book Step Up or Step Out is available on Amazon AU. Many organisations find that flying Jonno in costs far less than they expected.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, bestselling author, and leadership consultant who has worked with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. His book Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and his podcast The Leadership Conversations has featured 230+ episodes reaching listeners in 150+ countries. Jonno founded The 7 Questions Movement with 6,000+ participating leaders. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Jonno works globally and regularly travels for speaking and facilitation engagements.

To book Jonno for your next keynote, workshop, or facilitation session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Next Read

Georgia's 180+ school districts don't operate in a national vacuum. If you want to understand the national context within which Georgia education leaders are making their decisions, the 50 Essential US Public Education Leaders to Follow at consultclarity.org brings together the practitioners, researchers, and policy voices driving the national conversation. Keep reading: consultclarity.org/post/50-essential-us-public-education-leaders-to-follo