Wednesday, February 11, 2004
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Wednesday, February 11, 2004 |
| ‘Gold
Medal’ schools here are top business attraction
By J. FRANK LYNCH Thanks to its public schools, Fayette County ranks at the top of the list of potential relocation sites for corporate executives from around the nation, according to a report this month in the trade publication Expansion Management Magazine. The publication awarded a “Gold Medal” status to Fayette schools in its current edition, in which it also named Metro Atlanta No. 1 on its “hot list” of relocation sites nationwide for 2004. Expansion Management Magazine is aimed at company executives who are actively looking for a place to expand or relocate their facilities within the next two or three years, said Melinda Berry-Dreisbach, spokeswoman for the school system. The Fayette ranking was included in the magazine’s 13th annual “Education Quotient” ratings of all 2,800 secondary school districts throughout the nation with at least 3,500 students. With a score of 92, Fayette had the highest “EQ” rating of any school system in Georgia, and along with Gwinnett County was one of two in the state to get the “Gold Medal.” Gwinnett’s rating was 86. The gold medal honor means that the school system ranked in the top 17 percent nationally of those districts evaluated. According to the magazine’s Web site, it is calculated on a weighted scale that measures three factors: “Graduate Outcome” (how well students learn and how many stay to graduation), “Resource Index” (which measures a community’s financial commitment to education), and the “Community Index” (which measures the community’s adult education and income levels). All three are calculated on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 99 (highest), with 50 being the midpoint. The nation’s highest ranked schools were New Trier Township in Winnetka, Ill., north of Chicago, and Mountain Brook, Ala., in suburban Birmingham. The rating serves to provide corporate relocators with knowledge about an area’s potential workforce rather than concerns about enrolling their own children, the magazine’s website explained. Chris Clark, former director of the Fayette County Development Authority, said last year that the quality of local schools was a top draw for executives considering moving to Fayette County. The most recent relocation to the area was the January announcement that Cooper Wiring Devices, a division of Cooper Industries, will be moving to Peachtree City in late 2004. A new headquarters building is in the planning stages adjacent to Cooper Lighting on Ga. Highway 74 South. To read the report in full, go to the magazine’s Web site at www.ExpansionManagement.com.
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