AREA SCHOOLS EARN BLUE-RIBBON RATING IN MAGAZINE

Cape Girardeau public schools offer a "best buy" in terms of student achievement when compared to spending in the school district, according to a national magazine study.

Expansion Management, a magazine for corporate executives who might be considering relocating or expanding, looked at 770 school districts across the country to determine each school district's education quotient.

The magazine rated the school districts on factors that measure educational performance, resources invested in the classroom and support for local education within the community. The result is a district's education quotient.

The magazine looked at schools in the nation's biggest cities and then added communities where its advertisers had expressed an interest and randomly added other school districts editors thought might be interesting.

In Missouri, 20 of the state's 534 districts were analyzed. Locally, Cape Girardeau, Perryville and Sikeston were on the list.

Based on the education quotient, schools were placed in one of five categories: Gold Star districts showed a score well above average in both student achievement and money invested in the district.

Schools in the Blue Ribbon category, like Cape Girardeau, Sikeston and Perryville, scored the same as Gold Star districts in student achievement but spent much less money doing it.

Districts in the green category were average, yellow districts had low academics and low spending, and red districts had high spending but low academics.

"People who evaluate communities for business expansion require a good education system," said Jack Wimer, editor of Expansion Management magazine.

"This seems to be first and foremost on their list of things to care about," he said. "Communities with excellent schools can expect to come out on top when the site selectors come calling to create new jobs."

Cape Girardeau Superintendent Dan Tallent said the district is pleased to be rated a "best buy."

"We feel we're giving the kids a good education with the resources we have," Tallent said. "Does that mean we can just sit back and enjoy the fact that we are doing a good job? No. We need to continue to work to be better."

The district had long worked to be a partner in economic development, Tallent said. Currently, the district is putting finishing touches on a long-range plan that the superintendent thinks will help.

The long-range plan calls for construction of new school buildings over a period of years and improvement of educational offerings in the district.