Curriculum Advantage Finds Georgia Good for Schools, Business.

DULUTH, Ga. -- A little more than a year after Curriculum Advantage, Inc., publishers of Classworks Co computer-based student instruction in K-12 for English/Language Arts, Reading and Mathematics Co relocated the company headquarters from Los Angles to suburban Atlanta, the move is proving to be a success not only for the company, but for many local schools as well.

The move, which took place in August of 2005, brought the company closer to the majority of Classworks customers, who are in the Southeast, and established a space for a demonstration classroom and training center to showcase Classworks successes and best practices from all around the Southeast.

Curriculum Advantage (www.curriculumadvantage.com) has grown through various acquisitions, and many of its inherited offices were located far from its user base. All departments, including sales, technical support, customer support and operations, were relocated into a new Duluth location.

Nearly 120 schools in 30 school districts in Georgia are currently using Classworks in classrooms and computer labs, including sites in Atlanta City Schools, Houston County School District and Buford City Schools. This is in addition to hundreds of schools in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and North and South Carolina that use Classworks. The reports back from these schools and districts show that its students are benefiting from Classworks - both the program and the new company location.

In Houston County School District, 100 miles south of Atlanta, Classworks has been used extensively for two years, district officials decided to also use Classworks to help children who had failed Georgia's statewide Criterion-Referenced Competency Test. The results of this targeted application were impressive.

At Houston's King's Chapel School, third-, fourth- and fifth-graders who didn't pass the 2005-06 CRCT as second-, third- and fourth-graders received extra time with Classworks to prepare for this year's test. Of these students, 77 percent passed all three CRCT categories (reading, math and language arts), and of those, 18 percent not only met but exceeded expectations in at least one category. An amazing 100-percent of King's Chapel's third-graders who received extra time with Classworks met expectations in math, and 85 percent passed all three CRCT categories.

"This is an example that shows Classworks can help students make significant gains for on-grade-level success, as well as for remediation," said Danny Carpenter, the superintendent of schools for Houston County. "Students at King's Chapel were not working toward retaking a test they had already failed, but preparing themselves for the upcoming year's exams."

Classworks staff development is usually done at the schools, but because of the growing number of requests from districts seeking additional or specialized training, the company built a state-of-the-art training center in the middle of the headquarters. Recently a group of teachers, principals and technology department heads from throughout Barrow County, made the short trip down I-85 to Curriculum Advantage's Duluth office for a day of extra training in Classworks.

Barrow recently proved the value of Classworks instruction through an internal analysis of student achievement based on Classworks use. The study, which utilized questions released from the CRCT, showed student scores improving, on average, by 20 percent in reading and 12 percent in math.

"Students with considerable differences in individual skill on the pre-test demonstrated a fairly uniform and consistent improvement after exposure to Classworks," said Matt Thompson, the Barrow County testing specialist who conducted the study. "The improvement pre- and post-test for all students was noteworthy and considerable."

About Curriculum Advantage

Curriculum Advantage, Inc. (www.curriculumadvantage.com) is based in Duluth, Ga. Curriculum Advantage's flagship product is Classworks, a network-based system of K-12 reading and mathematics curriculum and learning tools that currently comprise over 5,000 hours of curriculum. Classworks activities are correlated to national and state learning standards and state tests. They include prescriptive and summative assessment, remediation and reporting tools. Classworks is installed in 3,000 schools in the United States and worldwide. INET Classroom, also from Curriculum Advantage, is a comprehensive library of web-based curriculum linked to state and national standards.