Press Release - January 24, 2006

Vantage Learning's 'MY Access!™ Selected as Finalist in Three Categories for the 21st Annual Codie Awards

The winner of two awards in 2005, and finalist four years in a row, Vantage Learning's online writing assessment program looks to set another record

Newtown, PA, January 24, 2006 - For the fourth year in a row, Vantage Learning (www.VantageLearning.com), the world's leading provider of online assessment tools, announced that the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) has chosen Vantage Learning's MY Access! as a finalist for the annual Codie Awards, this time competing in three categories. The Codie Awards showcase the industry's finest products and services, celebrate outstanding achievement and vision, and provide the only peer recognition program of its kind.

MY Access! 6.0 is an online, portfolio-based writing instruction program that allows students and teachers to track student writing progress over time. Last year, the program was selected by Codie Awards judges as a winner in the "Best Secondary Instructional Solution: Language Arts/English" and "Best English Language Learning Instruction Solution" categories. This year, in addition to these two categories, MY Access! is also a finalist as the "Best Student Test Preparation Solution".

Using MY Access!, students can write, review, and revise their work, as well as receive diagnostic feedback on critical writing dimensions, from organization to mechanics. Teachers can then review students' work and provide additional feedback.

"This year, with continued expansion of the satisfied customers using MY Access!, we've observed more users focusing on the instructional content and usage of the program, but also with intensive instruction and intervention for high stakes writing exams." says Harry Barfoot, VP of Marketing for Vantage Learning. "Rather than invest in just a 'prep' solution, teachers and administrators see the value of MY Access! for pre and post-testing, adding district benchmark writing assessments, aligning prompts to core reading programs, and leveraging their investments for a total solution to their writing needs."

The Codie Awards program has carried forward the same vision - to showcase the software and information industry's finest products and services. The program continues a tradition of honoring the best software, content, and education technology industries.

Version 6.0 of MY Access! builds on the continued approach taken by Vantage Learning to allow more customized features, align with individual state standards and tailor the teaching and learning environments to students' specific needs. Administrators can review student writing in a new reporting engine that enables drilling down into weak and strong skills by domain.

MY Access! is based on Vantage Learning's owned and developed proprietary IntelliMetric® engine, which uses a rich blend of artificial intelligence and expert knowledge to accurately assess students' competency and progress, in subjects ranging from reading and writing, to science, to social studies. Selected by ACT and the GMAT for essay-scoring, IntelliMetric has become the gold standard for accuracy and quality of essay scoring by differentiating the way writing is reviewed within the software.

"Other technologies exist that can grade essays," comments Barfoot, "but having IntelliMetric and MY Access! instead of an alternative option is like the difference between having a subject-certified teacher in the classroom instead of a substitute for the day; the comparisons just can't be made."

The 21st Annual Codie Awards Gala will be held on May 16, 2006 at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco during the annual SIIA Annual Conference.

About MY Access!

MY Access! is a web-based assessment and diagnostic writing environment that scores student essays instantly and provides individualized instruction that engages and motivates students to improve their writing proficiency. The robust online reporting feature provides up-to-the-minute student performance data, enabling teachers to make timely, data-driven decisions for successful differentiated instruction. MY Access! analyzes more than 400 semantic, syntactic and discourse characteristics and provides a holistic score as well as domain scores for five major areas: focus and meaning, organization, content and development, language use and style, and mechanics and conventions.

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.

Most recently, Vantage Learning's MY Access! won the 2004 Award of Excellence from Technology and Learning Magazine, and Eduventures selected Vantage Learning as one of the eight most innovative educational technology companies. In addition, MY Access! was included in Technology and Learning Magazine's Top 10 Smart Technologies for Schools in 2002, and is a Codie Awards finalist three years in a row. Vantage Learning provides services in all 50 states including Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Virginia, Oregon, and Texas and provides services to educational leaders such as ACT, Harcourt Assessment, Inc., Thomson Learning, and industry giants such as Microsoft, Apple Computer, AOL, and Sun Microsystems.