Blackboard Announces Support for Common Core State Standards

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) today announced support for the Common Core State Standards, which are now directly accessible for the K-12 community within the Blackboard Learn™, Release 9.1 and ANGEL Edition platforms. The integration makes it easy for teachers and administrators to search the standards database from the course environment to ensure that courses and content are aligned to the new standards.

To date, 39 U.S. states and territories and the District of Columbia have announced that they will adopt the Common Core State Standards, which define the knowledge and skills students should have in English and math during their K-12 careers in order to be successful in college and the workforce.

Blackboard Learn, Release 9.1 already offers alignment with existing academic standards for all 50 states and integrated lesson planning. These new capabilities help teachers align their instruction to standards based curricular requirements and generate reports on consistency. Release 9.1 also includes automated standards mapping which can save districts and teachers countless hours of manual updates when standards change. This capability can also help schools and districts make the transition to Common Core standards much faster.

"The Common Core standards are a key component of education reform efforts, and expanding our standards database to include them is an important step in aligning our course platform to the needs of schools and districts," said John Canuel, Vice President K-12 Education Strategy. "This is a key part of our overall commitment to standards based teaching and learning, and leveraging technology to better support teachers and students."

The Common Core standards were developed in collaboration with teachers, school administrators, and experts as part of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, a state led effort coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

For more information about Blackboard Learn for K-12, please visit http://www.talktobb.com/k12_overview.html.

For more information about the Common Core State Standards Initiative, please visit: http://www.corestandards.org.

About Blackboard Inc.

Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) is a global leader in enterprise technology and innovative solutions that improve the experience of millions of students and learners around the world every day. Blackboard's solutions allow thousands of higher education, K-12, professional, corporate, and government organizations to extend teaching and learning online, facilitate campus commerce and security, and communicate more effectively with their communities. Founded in 1997, Blackboard is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Any statements in this press release about future expectations, plans and prospects for Blackboard and other statements containing the words "believes," "anticipates," "plans," "expects," "will," and similar expressions, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including the factors discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of our Form 10-Q filed on November 5, 2010 with the SEC. In addition, the forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of December 6, 2010. The Company anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause the Company's views to change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to December 6, 2010.

SOURCE Blackboard Inc.