Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) was named a Gold Medal school system for the tenth consecutive year by Expansion Management magazine as a measure of the attractiveness of the school system to the business community.

Gold Medal school systems are in the top 17 percent of districts evaluated by the magazine.

This year's "education quotient" looked at all secondary school districts in the United States with an enrollment of at least 3,300 students. The annual Expansion Management review gathered data from 2,800 school districts throughout the nation.

MCPS and other gold medalists were recognized for offering companies considering expansion or relocation the best educational services nationally, including well-prepared high school graduates and excellent schools in which employees can enroll their children.

MCPS was one of five school systems in Maryland to earn the gold medal designation this year. Other gold medal winners were Baltimore, Carroll, Frederick, and Howard county schools. In the Washington metropolitan area, school systems in Arlington and Fairfax counties and the city of Manassas also were among the gold medalists.

The Gold Medal districts nationally constitute the high scorers on a three-part education quotient that includes the Graduate Outcome Index (graduates' scores on the SAT/ACT and graduation rates), the Resource Index (including per pupil expenditure, student-teacher ratios and teacher salaries) and the Community Index (socioeconomic factors such as level of education and family income).