Press Release - August 24, 2005

MY Access!™ Helps Georgia School Earn County's Highest Passing Rate for Eighth Graders

Conyers Middle School students ace Georgia Middle School Writing Exam after 10-week MY Access! pilot program which improved scores across the board

Conyers, Ga., August 24, 2005 - Conyers Middle School students are now exceeding expectations, thanks to its dedicated faculty, hard working students, and Vantage Learning's MY Access! online writing tool. Teachers at the school used MY Access! for ten weeks to prepare eighth-graders for the Georgia Middle School Writing Exam. The result: the highest score in Rockland County-a solid 91 percent passing rate, up from 84 percent the previous year.

MY Access! is Vantage Learning's award-winning Web-based writing environment that builds better writers by instantly scoring student essays, and providing immediate remedial instruction that engages and motivates students. It is based on Vantage Learning's IntelliMetric® engine, which uses a rich blend of artificial intelligence (AI) and the digitization of human expertise to accurately assess a student's competency and progress in reading, writing, science, and social studies.

Conyers Middle School was on the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) at-risk watch list for five years, and had failed to meet adequate yearly progress (AYP) standards for two years. The school was in danger of losing government funding. In an effort to improve students' writing skills, Conyers Middle School's faculty worked with Vantage Learning to develop a pilot program that better prepared eighth-graders for the state writing test. That program included the purchase of 400 MY Access! licenses.

The school's exceptional results speak for themselves.

"MY Access! was a major factor in boosting our students' writing scores," says Eugene Baker, Principal of Conyers Middle School. "We needed a solution that put our school back on the right track. MY Access! helped students who were going on to high school, yet unable to write a cohesive essay, master these crucial skills. It also lets teachers assess students on a regular basis, and it individualizes instruction to help students on every level of learning."

Indeed, the school's faculty is so enthusiastic about the pilot program's results that teachers will be speaking about the program's success at upcoming Southern Regional Education Board and National Middle School Conference meetings. Further, Conyers High School has also adopted MY Access!, allowing the school system to continue supporting these same eighth-graders with the educational power of MY Access!, so they can continue to accelerate their progress for another four years. This will also give their high school teachers an instant snapshot of their writing abilities from day one. The school district has also jump-started the process of purchasing MY Access! licenses for all eighth-graders.

"Again and again, MY Access! directly addresses the unique challenges and standards of the federal No Child Left Behind act," says Harry Barfoot, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Vantage Learning. "We are thrilled to be a part of Conyers' inspiring success story, and look forward to helping other schools in their district and throughout the state of Georgia earn equally impressive achievements."

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 Solution: Language Arts/English" and "Best Instructional Solution for English Language Learners". 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.