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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