NEWS. . . . . .At Rate My Teachers! The Students are rating the teachers and the press is very interested. Recent Press Releases for Rate My Teachers include: The New York Post; Z100 FM Radio and MSNBC. The traffic has grown beyond 500,000 page views in 24 hours March 28; and 7.8 million during the month of March.April 17 see our interview copy attached - ABC-TV New York with Celeste Ford Channel 7.

The cool teachers love our site and enjoy student comments....so should the others cause a problem?You decide.

As a follow-up to our previous correspondence of March 24, 2003, I wanted to update you on some recent developments at Ratemyteachers.com (RMT).

RMT has now received over 1.5 million ratings from individual students across America and Canada. This figure continues to grow daily by approximately 20,000. RMT has also received recent coverage in the New York press - NY Post March 31, 2003 page 27 and just this past week ABC affiliate WKERO 23 in Bakersfield CA., interviewed and aired a segment with RMT President Nancy Davis. Further, it is our understanding that Celeste Ford of ABC News in New York will be broadcasting a segment on RMT in the coming weeks.

Another interesting development is that 14,175 schools, and even some school districts, around the country have begun to block access to RMT from within their schools. This response to RMT by these schools raises two questions that we believe warrant an investigation; why are they blocking access to the site and, what are student's rights to access information online today?

As to the first question, one's immediate thought might likely be "what are they afraid of"? RMT believes that the blocking of access to the site is an attempt by some administrators to keep students from airing, and documenting, opinions of their teachers publicly. It is an attempt to censor the student body's "dialogue" for what essentially amounts to self-serving reasons. This information, in volume, could in some situations be embarrassing to a school and could hypothetically provide the basis for action by parents. That is not to say that all the student postings on RMT are negative. Far from it. RMT believes that the split is 7,087/7,087 or 8,505/5,670; 60% positive to negative.

RMT believes that this action by a relatively small number of school administrators is largely ineffective as RMT continues to grow at a rate of 8% weekly. Students have access to Internet outside the school, such as at home or at the home friend or relative, even at the local public library. Blocking a kids access to RMT only serves to engage him or her in seeking another route to RMT.

As to the second question, what are student's rights to access information online today"? No one, especially RMT, believes that children should have access to inappropriate material online. The information on RMT is not adult in nature. RMT goes to great lengths daily to audit every comment submitted for posting on the site to ensure that nothing inappropriate ever gets posted. As RMT is owned and operated by fulltime working teachers we have an acute sense of what is and what is not appropriate. In fact our standards for determining appropriateness are clearly outlined on RMT (insert url i.e. www.http://ratemyteachers.com/standards). The question really becomes, what are students rights, who are under the age of 18, to access material online that is not sexual, racist or offensive in nature, as compared to other mediums? Should RMT be treated like the corner candy store that sells pornography a half a block from a school or the cable TV service provider that offers adult movies?

Sincerely,

John Maltese

Marketing Director

www.ratemyteachers.com

Ph: 856.787.1012