Success Achieved in a Decades-long Quest to Find a Cure for the Ills in Our Educational System.

Online, October 4, 2013 (Newswire.com) - What do an elite New England preparatory school, the youngest person ever to be nominated for an Emmy, the world's most hated terrorist, and a retired Washington Redskins linebacker have in common? They each play a significant role in one man's quest to insure that every child in America receives a high quality education.

Dr. John Leddo, who was reared in a modest, single-parent home, was fortunate enough as a youngster to receive a full scholarship to attend Phillips Exeter Academy, ranked as one of America's top preparatory schools. While there, he found that Exeter students felt empowered and expected to succeed in whatever professions they chose for themselves. Dr. Leddo graduated from Exeter wanting to insure that all children had the same opportunity to receive high quality educations and have that same sense of empowerment for success. Dr. Leddo decided to major in Psychology in college and wound up receiving a PhD from Yale Unversity, studying under Dr. Robert Abelson, a leader in the fields of psychology and artificial intelligence.

Dr. Leddo began his professional career studying the knowledge experts have and how they solve problems. To his surprise, he found that the experts said that they didn't acquire that expertise through schooling, but on their own. Dr. Leddo decided to use his knowledge of psychology and artificial intelligence to create a software-based framework for teaching kids to become experts using a one to one, personalized teaching model. He started his own company, Research Development Corporation, and over the years, with grants and contracts from the Government's Small Business Innovation Research program, developed AI-based instructional software that, when tested in schools, produced large educational gains in 100% of its trials. His findings included:

• The technology was just as reliable as an experienced teacher in diagnosing student learning needs and performance against state standards

• At-risk 9th graders in an alternative high school performed at a level equal to mainstream high school 12th graders after a 25 hour tutoring program in scientific problem solving

• Eighth grade students improved 50% in mathematics problem-solving compared to those taught using a school district's normal curriculum

• Students viewing an interactive educational television program performed four times better than students viewing a standard non-interactive television program.

The most impressive result involved a New Jersey school district that had failed state monitoring and was performing in the bottom 25% of the state. After adopting Dr. Leddo's teaching framework and a portion of his technology, the school district became the top performer in its county and one of the top performers in the state.

Dr. Leddo next sought to build an online service where kids could be tutored in any subject without paying the high prices found at commercial tutoring companies. To do this, he looked for investors. In order to spur investment, he persuaded Keshia Knight Pulliam, who achieved fame in the 1980's-1990's hit sitcom, The Cosby Show, to serve as Education Online's spokesperson. Dr. Leddo thought he hit the jackpot in the summer of 2001, when an international humanitarian investor offered to invest $180 million in Dr. Leddo's dream. But before the deal could close, 9/11 struck, international markets collapsed, and the investor lost much of his money, cancelling the deal. Over the next few years, Dr. Leddo tried to find investors, but the wake of 9/11 and the dot-com collapse made investors wary of education startups.

Even though investors wouldn't touch Education Online, Dr. Leddo found that parents loved the vision of a low cost, online tutoring service that was available 24/7. With the help of a recruiter, Jack Crouse, EOL was able to recruit over 100 people who were willing to devote some time to build the service in exchange for stock options in the company. However, there was high turnover and paying jobs and family responsibilities made progress very slow. Then, Mr. Crouse was able to put Dr. Leddo in touch with Eddie Mason, a retired Washington Redskins linebacker. Mr. Mason loved the idea and he and fellow Redskins Ladell Betts and Chris Wilson made investments, along with some other local businesspeople and professionals. This, coupled with Dr. Leddo working up to five jobs at a time, enabled EOL to hire some full time workers and complete its first product, a fully-automated, online tutoring service for SAT math.

Education Online still has a long way to go before Dr. Leddo's dream of insuring that all children have high quality educations is realized. But this first service is a crucial milestone in making that dream a reality of making a top education affordable for all children.

For more information, contact Dr. John Leddo, 571-242-6986, [email protected], http://www.eolsat.com.