Miami, FL—(June 18, 2005)—Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the 4th largest school district in the United States, announced today that it will partner with LearningExpress, LLC, a leading provider of print and online educational resources, to improve the writing skills of students in grades 3-10. Enhancing the district's current writing improvement initiatives, this program, called the Zone Writing Project, is directly aligned with the FCAT, and lets students practice writing essays in an easy online format. Trained professional scorers grade essays within 72 hours, and diagnostic score reports become immediately available to teachers and administrators.

Accessible to 16,000 students in grades 3-10, the Miami-Dade County Public Schools Zone Writing Project also offers retrievable online writing portfolios that track each student's career in the Miami-Dade district, from elementary school through graduation. The online portfolios enable administrators and teachers to evaluate the full spectrum of each student's writing abilities as they advance from one grade level to the next. This longitudinal data will enable Miami-Dade County Public School administrators to make informed decisions about the district's writing curriculum and accountability measures. The Miami-Dade County Public Schools Zone Writing Project also offers tremendous time savings for teachers through the use of professional scorers— teachers can now focus their efforts on teaching rather than scoring. Each essay is scored using objective, standardized rubrics that are based on the official FCAT.

Irving Hammer, Deputy Superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, said, "LearningExpress has a reputation for delivering quality solutions that help ensure positive learning outcomes in the classroom. Not only will our students gain valuable writing experience, but our teachers will benefit immensely from the program's diagnostic scoring and reporting features, which free them from the burden of grading hundreds of essays, and help them to assess individual and classroom learning needs throughout the school year."

Barry Lippman, CEO and President of LearningExpress, LLC said, "This innovative program provides Miami-Dade's Zone Schools with a powerful reporting tool for identifying student gaps, managing student data, and measuring progress across writing assignments and grade levels."

The LearningExpress Zone Writing Project will be implemented in Miami-Dade's classrooms beginning in September. Training for teachers begins the end of July.

About LearningExpress, LLC (www.LearningExpressLLC.com)
Founded in 1995, LearningExpress, LLC has become a leading provider of print and online educational and professional resources that are used in over 4,000 libraries and 1,600 schools, and benefit over one million students, teachers, administrators and career professionals around the country. 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.