New York, NY—(February, 2006)—Schools in Miami-Dade's School Improvement Zone are seeing significant improvements in students' writing performance after implementing an innovative writing program at selected grades in elementary, middle and high school. LearningExpress Write Track, a program directly aligned with the FCAT, lets students practice writing essays both online and in paper-and-pencil format, and relieves teachers of the time-consuming task of scoring essays. Trained professional scorers grade all essays within 72 hours, and objective online diagnostic and comparative score reports become immediately available to teachers and administrators.

In January 2005, The Miami-Dade County Public School system, the nation's 4th largest school district, initiated the School Improvement Zone, consisting of 39 schools serving approximately 44,000 students. These schools were targeted based on their chronic low math, reading, and writing scores on the FCAT—53% of their students scored at a level I or II on the 2004 Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). According to Florida's performance rating system, each school had received a D or an F for three years or more.

In May, 2005, Miami-Dade County Public Schools partnered with LearningExpress, LLC to improve students' performance on the FCAT Writing Plus assessment. They also wanted to provide administrators and teachers with better tools to help them make informed decisions critical to the teaching of writing throughout the school year. A program called Write Track was administered in 37 of 39 Zone schools. As part of this program, 15,000 students in 5 grades throughout the Zone's elementary, middle and high schools responded in either an online or paper-and-pencil format to writing assessments directly aligned with Florida state standards and large-scale assessments. Like the FCAT Writing Plus essay, each student essay was scored professionally, and returned to the district within 3 days of its administration. Student responses, essay results, and diagnostic feedback were accessible online to administrators and teachers for assessment, targeted remediation, and tracking. The Write Track program also made it possible for each student's work to be collected in an online portfolio—giving administrators and teachers valuable feedback on students' writing achievements as they advance from one grade level to the next.

After implementing the Write Track program, 32 out of 37 participating Zone schools have increased their pass rate on the writing assessments from the first to final administration of the tests-10th grade students improved their pass rate from 30% to 56%. One elementary classroom's gains were particularly impressive-improving its student passing rate from 0% to 65%.

"We are pleased to work in close partnership with Miami-Dade County Public Schools to implement an effective, customized solution that meets the needs of the district's administrators, teachers and students, improves students' writing achievements, and contributes to Miami-Dade's overall improvement goals, said Barry Lippman, CEO and President of LearningExpress."

About LearningExpress (www.LearningExpressLLC.com)
Founded in 1995, New York-based LearningExpress, LLC has become a leading provider of print and online educational and professional resources that are used in more than 4,000 libraries and 5,000 schools, and benefit more than one million students, teachers, administrators and career professionals around the country each year. The company offers hundreds of interactive online practice tests and skill-building courses that improve achievement in the classroom and prepare students for high-stakes assessment tests, the SAT and ACT, and Advanced Placement exams. For adults and high school students entering the workforce, LearningExpress, LLC provides a wide range of vocational resources from job-search tools and preparation for career certification and licensing exams to work-place skills programs, and business writing courses.

For more information, contact Chris Atkins, Director of Marketing at catkins@learningexpressllc.com or call 800-295-9556, ext. 6438.