School ratings offer parents an easy way to quickly get a high level assessment of school performance

San Francisco, CA (May 25, 2007) - InfoCommerce announced today that it has selected GreatSchools as a recipient of its Models of Excellence Award, pointing specifically to GreatSchools' 1-10 school ratings. "GreatSchools offers a worthy example of how otherwise dry, statistical data can be made more useful and valuable by adding a ratings component. It also captures the power of user-generated content in a compelling way by inducing comments and additional information from the stakeholders most vested in, and knowledgeable about, individual schools. It's a fabulous and well-executed resource," says Russell Perkins, founder and managing director, InfoCommerce Group.

GreatSchools Ratings provide a simple way to quickly understand relative performance of K-12 schools. Bill Jackson, GreatSchools' founder and CEO comments, "We developed our ratings to give parents a high level snapshot of a school's test results, in conjunction with all of the other information about individual schools that our Web site has to offer. For many parents who are choosing schools, test results are a starting point. We provide a rich resource of data, comments from parents, information from principals and a library of expert advice to help parents look deeply at schools. The worksheets and articles in our School Choice Tips guide parents in finding a school that is the right fit for their child while our email newsletters help parents support their children's education year-round."

The GreatSchools Web site offers parents a wide array of deep information about K-12 schools nationwide. In addition to the GreatSchools Ratings, any visitor to the site can compare a school's test scores, student-teacher ratio and demographic breakdown to nearby schools. School administrators can post information about their school that the data don't capture - the school's mission, special programs and strengths - and update this information as it changes. And parents are invited to post their comments about the school its teaching quality, extracurricular programs, parent involvement and principal leadership. The Parent Ratings are displayed separately from the GreatSchools Test Score Ratings so parents can tell where these numbers come from.

Ratings were unveiled for public and charter schools for all states in January of this year. The ratings give an overview of a school's test results and are based on a comparison of results for all schools within a given state. Private schools are not rated, as private schools are not required to release data to the public. GreatSchools Ratings cannot be compared across states, given the differences in testing programs in different states.

InfoCommerce describes its Model of Excellence Award by saying, "It's the question we've been asked, in one way or another, ever since the Internet became part of the information supply chain. Who's doing it right? The question reflects both the tantalizing sense that some publishers, somewhere, are using the Internet to create profitable new products, and the bedeviling suspicion that there is a new cast of characters out there, cultivating ideas that can really shake things up."

GreatSchools Inc. is an independent, nonprofit organization working to improve K-12 education by inspiring parents to get involved. Its online media property, GreatSchools.net, is the nation's premier provider of K-12 school information, reaching 33 million users last year, an estimated reach into 33% of the nation's K-12 households. GreatSchools provides school information on its free Web site, GreatSchools.net, and through its free email newsletters thanks to the support of foundations and corporations that understand the importance of parent involvement in a child's education.

InfoCommerce Group Inc. (ICG) is the leading consulting, publishing, conference and research company focused on the data publishing industry. ICG's mission is to stay in the center of the dynamic and growing database industry to identify trends, opportunities and best practices, and communicate them back to the industry.

Contact:
Alison Lingane
GreatSchools
(415) 977-0700, ext. 125
pr@greatschools.net