Press Release - June 8, 2005

Ohio School District Uses MY Access!™ to Tackle Rapid Classroom Growth and Federal Requirements

Online writing tool helps Teays Valley schools meet state and federal standards, while alleviating pressures of overcrowding and shrinking language arts programs

Ashville, Ohio, June 8, 2005 - The Teays Valley School District is solving many of the problems that schools across the country are wrestling with: rapid enrollment growth, less instructional time, budget constraints, and overworked teachers-all while trying to prepare students for No Child Left Behind assessments. Their secret weapon: MY Access!™, Vantage Learning's innovative instructional writing software that allows students to practice and revise their assigned essays online, both in the classroom and at home. MY Access! provides immediate feedback, specific to the student's writing style, using Vantage's IntelliMetric® essay scoring technology.

The district's MY Access! pilot program, inaugurated at the beginning of the school year, helped students taking the Ohio Achievement Tests get more instruction in less time, freed teachers from grading hundreds of essays, and most importantly, got students excited about the writing process.

The Teays Valley School District has renovated and enlarged five schools, is building a sixth in two years, and the district was forced to deal with overcrowded classrooms by combining two 42-minute reading and writing periods into one 56-minute language arts period. Teachers were challenged to fit the same level of instruction into less time, while also prepping students for the writing portions of upcoming state and federal assessment tests.

District officials decided to test MY Access! as a possible solution. They bought 100 licenses and established a pilot program among two 8th and 9th grade classes. Teachers evenly divided classes between those using MY Access! and those using traditional instruction. The results of the MY Access! group were so impressive that the district recently ordered 1,200 more licenses-before the Ohio Achievement Tests scores were even released.

"Our teachers are thrilled with how MY Access! helps students quickly grasp concepts such as punctuation and sentence structure," says Dr. Gary Doberstyn, Director of Curriculum at Teays Valley School District. "Our rapidly expanding enrollment put pressure on our district to continue performing well on assessments, while delivering high-quality instruction overall. MY Access! is helping us balance classroom time and projected growth."

Doberstyn designated Teays Valley Schools as a model for the MY Access! program. Teachers from the district come to the middle school, walk through the writing labs, and learn more about how MY Access! works. He also has conducted several MY Access! presentations to a network of assistant superintendents in surrounding districts. This fall, the district's 1,200 new licenses will be allocated among the district's 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th graders, and 12th grade Advanced Placement classes.

"Teays Valley serves as a great example of a district that understands its needs and took a leap of faith to get the right resources." says Harry Barfoot, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Vantage Learning. "Any time a school adopts a new technology, it requires an enormous amount of time, effort, and organization. Teays Valley was more than willing to take on the challenge because they realized that MY Access! addresses assessment needs as well as day-to-day instruction. The fact that they bought 1,200 more licenses before even seeing the state test results is a testament to MY Access! and its positive impact on those who use it."

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.

Eduventures has selected Vantage Learning as one of the eight most innovative educational technology companies. MY Access!, Vantage's instructional writing program that utilizes Intellimetric essay-scoring, earned a 2003 District Administration Top 100 Award and was included in Technology and Learning Magazine's Top 10 Smart Technologies for Schools. A Codie Awards finalist three years in a row, MY Access! recently won the 2005 Codie Award in two categories, "Best Secondary Education Instructional Tool" and "Best English Language Learning Instructional Solution". In addition, MY Access! was awarded the 2004 Award of Excellence from Technology and Learning Magazine.

Vantage Learning provides services in all 50 states directly to end-user clients and provides services to educational leaders such as The College Board, ACT, Harcourt Educational Measurement, CTB/McGraw Hill and Thomson Learning, and industry giants such as Microsoft, Apple Computer, AOL, and Sun Microsystems.