Montgomery County Public Schools has been named a Gold Medal school system for the eleventh consecutive year by Expansion Management magazine as a measure of the attractiveness of the school system to the business community.

Gold Medal school systems this year ranked in the top 17 percent of districts evaluated by the magazine. This year's Education Quotient ratings included 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 among the best educational services nationally, including well-prepared high school graduates and excellent schools for employees to enroll their children.

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

The gold medal districts nationally constitute the high scorers on the three-part Education Quotient that includes the Graduate Outcome Index (graduates' scores on the SAT/ACT and graduation rates), the Resource Index (teacher salaries, per pupil expenditure, and student-teacher ratios) and the Community Index (median household income, adult education levels, and child poverty rate).