CLEVELAND, OHIO — January 8, 2007 — Expansion Management Magazine, a bimonthly business magazine for executives of companies that are actively looking for a place to expand or relocate their facilities within the next one to three years, recently published its 16th annual Education Quotient™ ratings of 2,819 secondary school districts throughout the United States. The magazine rates school districts as a way of providing its readers with a basis for comparing the type of work force they are likely to encounter in various communities around the country.
“In today’s knowledge-based global economy, nothing is more important to companies than the ability to find, and employ, an increasingly well-educated work force,” said Bill King, chief editor of Expansion Management magazine. “The Education Quotient provides them with a way to compare communities nationwide in terms of the quality of the work force they are likely to encounter should they choose to open a manufacturing, distribution, or other business facility there.”
Expansion Management magazine is mailed to more than 43,000 CEOs, vice presidents, directors and other officers of companies that have indicated they are considering expanding into new geographic areas.
This year’s EQ looked at all secondary school districts in the United States with an enrollment of at least 3,300 students. (Click here to see List of School Districts Included in the 2007 Education Quotient Ratings).
How the ratings work
The EQ is calculated on a weighted scale that measures three indices: “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 indices, as well as the EQ score, are calculated on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 99 (highest), with 50 being the midpoint.
Individual school districts receive one of five rankings — Gold Medal schools rank in the top 16 percent of those districts evaluated, while Blue Ribbon districts rank in the top third nationally. Green Flag districts comprise the average, while Yellow Flag (bottom 25 percent) and Red Flag (bottom 10 percent) districts are below the national average.
Unlike many other educational ratings, which equate excellence to the level of public funding received, the EQ focuses primarily on results. Although it includes data on spending, teacher salaries and the socioeconomic background of the surrounding communities, by far the most important factors are the test scores and the graduation rates.
“Many people — primarily journalists and educators — constantly ask why a business magazine like ours would rate high school districts and, on the surface, it seems like a reasonable question,” according to King. “The reason is that employers want to know if their potential workers are smart enough to do the job, and if they will show up for work every day. While 28 percent of adults in the U.S. have a college degree, simple math tells you that, for 72 percent of adults, high school is their highest level of formal education.”
For a copy of the 2007 Education Quotient article, go to Expansion Management’s Web site at www.ExpansionManagement.com and look under RESEARCH STUDIES.
Means the article is accessible only to our magazine subscribers.
