B -- Quality Assurance of National Assessment of Educational Progress Processes 2008-12

The Department of Education is searching for qualified small businesses and small disadvantaged businesses, including 8(a) vendors, to perform a five-year NAEP Quality Assurance (QA) contract (FY2008 through 09/29/2012). The Department is not seeking capability statements from large vendors. Interested SB, SDB, including 8(a) vendors can call John Machen at 202-245-6167 or email john.machen@ed.gov. Please submit your Capability Statements electronically by 12 noon, Eastern Standard Time, on Thursday, January 30, 2008. The Purpose of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is: The purpose of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is to provide a fair and accurate measurement of educational achievement in reading, mathematics, science and writing -- often referred to as the core assessments -- and other content areas including history, geography, civics, economics, foreign languages and the arts as funds are available. The assessment results are representative of the nation, regions, and where appropriate, states and select urban districts at grades 4, 8, and 12. NAEP also reports on national long term trend assessments in reading and mathematics for students at ages 9, 13, and 17. Purpose and Legislative Authority for National Assessment of Educational Progress The National Assessment of Educational Progress Improvement Act, Part C of the Augustus F. Hawkins-Robert T. Stafford Elementary and Secondary School Improvements Amendments of 1988 (Public Law 100-297), which is now part of U.S. Code (20 U.S.C. 9010 and 9011), legislatively defined the purpose of the NAEP "to improve the effectiveness of our nation's schools by making objective information about student performance in selected learning areas available to policymakers at the national, state and local levels. To enhance its utility, such information should be both representative and comparable, and should be maintained in a manner that ensures the privacy of individual students and their families." The most important aspect of NAEP is its ability to report trends in student performance overtime. Therefore, NAEP must maintain the capacity to report results of each new assessment on the same metric as past assessments. The National Assessment of Educational Progress Improvement Act, Part C of Public Law 100-297 (later 20 U.S.C. 9010 and 9011) restructured the National Assessment and authorized NAEP to report directly to the Commissioner of Education Statistics at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Among the major changes were: the establishment of a National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy governing NAEP and provides NCES with advice on how to carry out the assessments, and the authorization of Trial State Assessments in 1990 and 1992. Other provisions called for assessments of adult literacy, protection of the confidentiality of the assessment data, ongoing reviews of NAEP, and an independent evaluation of the Trial State Assessments. Public Law 103-33 (now part of 20 U.S.C. 9010 and 9011) amended the National Assessment of Educational Progress Improvement Act in 1994 to authorize a trial state assessment in mathematics and reading. The Improving Americas? Schools Act, Title IV of Public Law 103-382 (now part of 20 U.S.C. 9010 and 9011), authorized state and national assessments under the NAEP program for an additional 3 years, and dropped the prohibition on providing school district results. The Amendment to the National Education Statistics Act of 1994 in the No Child Left Behind legislation of 2001 included the following provisions: * Assessments in reading and mathematics at 4th and 8th grades every other year with 1 year off between assessments starting with a 2003 baseline assessment; and 12th grade reading and mathematics assessments administered at least every 4 years. * States and school districts receiving Title I funds are to participate in the 4th and 8th grade reading and mathematics assessments. * National samples are to include public and private schools. * Parents of students selected for any NAEP sample are to be informed, "that their child may be excused from participation for any reason, is not required to finish any...assessment, and is not required to answer any test question." * "Personal or family beliefs and attitudes" are not to be assessed and National Assessment Governing Board is to ensure that all NAEP questions are "secular, neutral, and non-ideological." * Parents, members of the public, and state and local education officials, upon written request, are to be given access to all NAEP questions under secure conditions and may submit written complaints. * NAEP long-term trend reading and mathematics assessments at ages 9, 13, and 17 are to be administered. * Information by disability and limited-English proficiency in addition to race or ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status are to be reported wherever feasible. Until this legislation is reauthorized, possibly in 2007, NAEP will continue to operate under these provisions. Administration The Commissioner of Education Statistics in NCES carries out the National Assessment, while the National Assessment Governing Board is responsible for establishing policies and guidelines for NAEP. NCES implements NAEP through a team of contractors, termed the "NAEP Alliance." While each Alliance Contractor implements a particular phase or phases of the assessment (described in more detail on the bidders page in the "NAEP Alliance Components" section), the Alliance must function as a team with a high degree of coordination and including some tasks that must be performed jointly. In addition, the Quality Assurance Contractor must function well with the NAEP Alliance and any other Contractors that perform work on the NAEP project. Purpose of This Contract Since the first assessments administered in 1969, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has served as the central national measure of student achievement ever since (Jones, 1996). Over the past four decades, the NAEP program has undergone several significant transformations. Most recently, the No Child Left Behind Education Act of 2002 (NCLB) gave rise to many changes within the program. This legislation requires states to implement rigorous school accountability systems and also requires states to participate in biennial NAEP assessments in reading and mathematics for grades 4 and 8. The legislation also includes shifting the cost of state coordination and test administration to the federal government and increased security, public access, and review of NAEP?s instruments (Public Law 100-297 and later 20 U.S.C. 9010 and 9011). Over the past four years, the result of the NCLB legislation has been a dramatic increase in the role of NAEP as a national instrument for educational reform and the effort needed to ensure the quality of the NAEP program. Thus, it is critical that all of NAEP's processes, operations, products, and publications be of the highest quality, and that continuous improvement be made. To address the increased need for quality assurance, NCES included a contract for a NAEP Quality Assurance (NAEP-QA) project in its 2003 - 2007 cycle of contracts. The NAEP-QA project developed a comprehensive and coordinated program of activities to ensure the overall quality of the NAEP program. It was designed to provide independent checks and real-time corrective feedback for the various processes conducted by each of the other contracts related to the NAEP program. The NAEP-QA project is extremely challenging because of the wide-ranging and complex activities it seeks to monitor, such as NAEP's intricate assessment design and operations, conducting real-time corrective action, and anticipating problems and recommending improved processes for reducing the risk of their occurrence. As the NAEP program prepares for the 2008 - 2012 cycle of contracts, the need for a Quality Assurance Contractor is greatly needed. The purpose of the Quality Assurance of NAEP Processes contract is to provide a formative evaluation of NAEP. NCES is seeking a Contractor who will serve as partner to NCES by providing programmatic feedback for the continuous improvement and enhancement of the NAEP program. The Quality Assurance Contractor will assist NCES in identifying any weaknesses or flaws in the critical path of NAEP and will make recommendations for strengthening NAEP processes. The Contractor would be expected to build on valuable information gained from the NAEP-QA project over the last four years, which includes recommendations from a review of past problems, analyses of NAEP processes, various operational site visits, and many small-scale studies of specific NAEP processes. Specifically, this request for proposals calls for a review of program methods and analyses to assist with programmatic strategic planning, analysis of NAEP processes, site visits of various NAEP operations and processes, study of NAEP operations and processes, and other general quality assurance activities. This contract will partly fulfill legislative requirements (P.L. 107-279, Title 3, Section 303) that calls for a continuing review of NAEP. However, it is not intended to address all of the issues identified in that section of the legislation. The Department of Education issued another contract for a summative evaluation of the NAEP program that serves as the primary source for the Secretary's report to Congress, the President of the United States, and the Nation. NOTE: Because the Quality Assurance Contractor will provide support for NCES that includes reviewing work by NAEP Contractors, eventual winner of this contract may not currently hold any other NAEP-related contracts. Submission of Capability Statements All interested small businesses and small disadvantaged businesses, including 8(a) vendors, should submit capability statements (electronically) to the contact person (John Machen) by the Closing Date of this notice. Please submit your Capability Statement to John Machen at john.machen@ed.gov by 12 noon, EST, 01/30/2008.