Press Release - May 18, 2005

Vantage Learning Partners with Education Service Center Region 20 in Texas to Support Migrant Education through MATEMATICA 2005

Vantage-developed online curriculum assessment tool, WebCCAT, will be used to assess migrant students during the summer months

Newtown, PA, May 18, 2005 - Vantage Learning (www.VantageLearning.com), the world's leading provider of online assessment and essay scoring technologies, has partnered with Education Service Center Region 20 to support Project SMART 2005 - MATEMATICA, a national distance learning program geared toward improving the math skills of migrant students during the summer of 2005.

MATEMATICA (Math Achievement Toward Excellence for Migrant Students and Professional Development for Teachers in Math Instruction Consortium Arrangement) is a federally funded program designed to improve the educational opportunities afforded to nearly 40,000 migrant students living in Texas. The project represents a collaborative effort between the Texas Education Agency's Division of NCLB, Region 20 and seven consortium states to ensure instructional continuity for migrant students who either remain in Texas or travel to other states during the summer months. This year's MATEMATICA curriculum is a technology-enhanced project which focuses on improving the math skills of highly mobile, migrant students in grades K-12. MATEMATICA assessments for grades 3 through 8 will be delivered using WebCCAT, a web-based curriculum assessment tool developed by Vantage Learning.

WebCCAT contains an item bank of math questions fully aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) that will be used to address the needs identified in migrant students. WebCCAT's interactive design allows educators to measure student ability on particular TEKS, receive immediate results with online assessment, provide remediation and tailored instruction based on a student's strengths and weaknesses, and gauge student progress throughout the course of the program. Since WebCCAT is web-based, students can complete their homework assignments, quizzes or tests anywhere they have access to a computer and the Internet. Other distance learning activities coordinated by Region 20 will be delivered via taped and live television broadcasts and through MATEMATICA teachers and partners throughout the country.

"Under No Child Left Behind, all students are supposed to have equal access to quality instruction, but unfortunately, all too often the children of migrant workers fall through the cracks of the education system as they move from school to school," notes Harry Barfoot, VP of Sales of Marketing of Vantage Learning. "With MATEMATICA, the Texas Education Agency has taken proactive steps to provide migrant Texas students with a quality education through innovative uses of technology, such as live interactive distance learning and web-based assessment. We're proud that Region 20 selected WebCCAT for incorporation into the 2005 program and applaud the Texas Education Agency for its demonstrated commitment to this often-overlooked segment of the student population."

About Vantage Learning

Vantage Learning (www.VantageLearning.com), an affiliate of Vantage Laboratories and the leading provider of online assessment and automated essay scoring, developed IntelliMetric® to meet the needs of business, education, and government agencies needing a comprehensive Internet-based test authoring, delivery, scoring and reporting platform. IntelliMetric administers and scores responses to open-ended questions over the Internet using advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technology. An individual can enter a response to a question posed, submit the response, and receive an immediate score with feedback within seconds.

In 2002, Vantage Learning teamed with the Region 10 Education Service Center of the Texas Education Agency to create WebCCAT (Web-Based Comprehensive Curriculum Assessment Tool). WebCCAT provides Texas educators with a repository of 28,500 questions mapped to the TEKS that can be used to create online or offline (paper) assessments of student ability in the areas of language arts, math, science and social studies for grades 3-11. Vantage Learning provides services in all 50 states including Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Virginia, Oregon, and Texas and provides services to educational leaders such as The College Board, ACT, Harcourt Assessment, Inc., CTB/McGraw Hill and Thomson Learning.