eSCORE.com Announces Major e-Commerce Partnership With Weekly Reader Corporation

Weekly Reader Endorses eSCORE.com With "Seal of Approval"

NEW YORK, NY -- January 11, 2000 -- eSCORE.com, the first Web site providing educational services to help parents answer the question "what's best for my child's education and development?," today announced that it has entered into a comprehensive e-commerce partnership with Weekly Reader Corporation. The alliance will make eSCORE.com the first Web site to offer parents home-delivered subscriptions to any of Weekly Reader Corporation's 15 publications, further broadening eSCORE.com's online educational services for parents and their kids newborn to age 14.

Weekly Reader Corporation has also awarded eSCORE.com, which will launch this month, its official "Weekly Reader Seal of Approval," and will link eSCORE.com to contests, activities, and other grade-specific content on www.weeklyreader.com.

With eight million paid subscriptions nationwide, Weekly Reader publications are used in one out of four classrooms. Today's announcement extends the reach of these publications to families who have never before had access to them outside the classroom. Home-delivered Weekly Reader subscriptions cost approximately $25 per year. eSCORE.com will receive a percentage of each subscription sold.

"Weekly Reader is one of the most well-respected publishers for pre-K to high school audiences," said Andy Kaplan, president of eSCORE.com. "By setting up a unique subscription channel through eSCORE.com, we're making these time-tested Weekly Reader publications available to parents who want to receive them at home. eSCORE.com's goal is to help parents become their child's best learning partner by understanding and nurturing his or her learning process. Our partnership with Weekly Reader reinforces that mission."

"eSCORE.com is an extremely well-designed and effective site for helping parents get involved with their child's education. Weekly Reader is proud to partner with a site of such high caliber," said Gregory Hilbert, director of business development at Weekly Reader. "We see this partnership as just the beginning of an ongoing relationship with eSCORE.com that could expand into a variety of new media initiatives."

eSCORE.com is creating a new e-education category -- one that blends the best of the Internet with person-to-person services. eSCORE.com identifies and evaluates a child's particular educational needs and interests using a combination of brief assessments and questionnaires, along with direct input from parents.

Education specialists at eSCORE.com partner with parents to recommend educational activities, products and services that address the learning needs of their child. Parents can also turn to eSCORE.com for an array of other services including information on state education standards, state test resources, child development workshops, ongoing consultations with education specialists and local educational event listings.

eSCORE.com's other content partners include Harvard Project Zero, the Brazelton Institute and LD OnLine. The eSCORE Store offers the most comprehensive online inventory of children's educational products available, with more than 50,000 products, toys and games, all carefully selected to help children realize their learning potential. Suppliers include Imagine the Challenge, Educator's Resource, and Baker & Taylor. eSCORE.com has initial funding of $25 million, and is a division of SCORE! Learning Corporation, a leading provider of after-school programs for kids and educational resources for parents.

About Weekly Reader Corporation
Weekly Reader Corporation is the leading publisher of classroom magazines for Pre-K through highschool, offering Teen Newsweek, Current Science, Current Health, Read, and editions of Weekly Reader for each grade from PreK through Grade 6.

About SCORE! Learning Corporation

SCORE! Learning Corporation, a subsidiary of Kaplan, is a leading provider of after-school learning programs for kids and educational resources for parents. Its three divisions include SCORE! Educational Centers, SCORE! Prep and eSCORE.com. At SCORE! Educational Centers, after-school learning centers nationwide, students in grades K-9 develop academic skills, confidence and a love of learning in a high-energy, motivational environment. Using a proven interactive curriculum that adapts to each student's academic needs and learning style, SCORE! centers serve all kinds of students, including many who are at or above grade level. SCORE! Prep serves high school students with one-on-one, in-home tutoring for standardized tests and academic subjects. Kaplan is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO).

Press Contact: pubrel@kaplan.com, (212) 492-5965

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