ADI - State Education Data Center/ K-12 and P-20 Data Models

The Department of Education intends to make a sole source award to the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), located in Washington, D.C., for enhancements to its State Education Data Center (SEDC) to expand public access and use of education data. CCSSO will be tasked with building a link between its SEDC and the Department's EDFacts submission system; continuing to host the SEDC's free and publicly accessible website, SchoolDataDirect.org; expanding the data download capacity currently available on SchoolDataDirect.org; providing a Help Desk to assist website users in accessing, downloading, and understanding the available data; conducting outreach activities to promote awareness of the SEDC and its services; and organizing and convening a technical advisory group to guide technical enhancements made to SchoolDataDirect.org. It is imperative that the offeror has the following technical infrastructure in place prior to contract award: - A publicly accessible website providing five years (2003-2004, 2004-2005, 2005-2006, 2006-2007, 2007-2008) of the following categories of education data for the 50 states plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia at the state, district, and (where applicable) school levels: Descriptive/directory information; student enrollment data, student performance data; teacher and staffing data; fiscal data; college preparatory data; and community demographic data. - Search and analytic capabilities on the publicly accessible website to allow users to easily search for data at the state, district, and school levels, as well as compare (within states) districts and schools on selected indicators. - Data download capabilities on the publicly accessible website to allow users to download data files for district and school data. In addition, the contractor must demonstrate the following competencies, experiences, and skills: - Familiarity with the Coordinated Data Ask. - A thorough understanding of EDFacts. - Established relationships with State Education Agencies (SEAs), and a solid understanding of SEA accountability systems and data processes. - Capacity to convene working groups. CCSSO is uniquely qualified in having both the necessary infrastructure in place as well the desired competencies, experiences, and skills. CCSSO's website, SchoolDataDirect.org, meets all of the infrastructure requirements outlined above. In addition: - CCSSO led the development of the Coordinated Data Ask with the Data Quality Campaign. - CCSSO provides contractual support to the Department for EDFacts. - CCSSO's membership includes 49 of the 50 SEAs, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. - CCSSO provides builds on the expertise of its membership to develop and disseminate resources on accountability and data systems. - CCSSO regularly convenes chief state school officers, SEA accountability directors, and SEA data administrators. In sum, the existing infrastructure together with the expertise and experience found at CCSSO make this organization uniquely qualified to conduct the work required under the proposed procurement. The proposed contract action is for services for which the Government intends to solicit and negotiate with only one source under the authority of FAR 6.302. Interested persons may identify their interest and capability to respond to the requirement by submitting a letter of interest to the contact person by the closing date in this notice. The Department will afford interested parties an opportunity to submit capability statements outlining existing capacity and experience directly relevant to this requirement. All capability statements received by the posted response date will be considered by the Government. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement.