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Screening Curricular Materials for Alignment to College, Career, and Civic-Readiness Standards Attachment A

Alternate ID #: 27TALWP1 COMMBUYS Bid #:BD-26-1026-DOE02-DOE01-129121

Background:

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) provides guidance to local education agencies as they work to select comprehensive core curricular materials that are well aligned to the standards of the college, career, and civic-readiness standards of the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks and Massachusetts Standards of Effective Teaching Practice (I and II). Through its CUrriculum RAtings by TEachers (CURATE) project, DESE convenes panels of Massachusetts teachers to review and rate evidence on the quality and alignment of core curricular products to support local education agencies to make informed, local decisions about curricula as part of a comprehensive curriculum evaluation and selection process with support from a diverse stakeholder group, including families. CURATE reviews result in publicly available reports with ratings that designate when a product Meets Expectations, Partially Meets Expectations, or Does Not Meet Expectations for each criterion within two domains: Standards Alignment and Classroom Application.

We value the time of our panelists and want them to review only materials that have been found to Meet Expectations for alignment to the depth and rigor of college, career, and civic-readiness standards (i.e., Standards Alignment). We want to set a clear threshold of quality materials must clear to be considered for review by our panels. The purpose of this Bid is to establish that threshold.

Scope of Service:

We seek trusted, independent, third-party evaluators of widely used core curricular materials who will:

1. Provide teacher-generated or subject-matter-expert-generated ratings of core curricula’s alignment to college, career, and civic-readiness learning standards integrated with English language development standards (WIDA 2020), along with clear and comprehensive documentation of rationales for those ratings for any of the following content areas: English language arts/literacy, mathematics, science, history, digital literacy and computer science, and English as a Second Language.

2. Engage informally with us, for example, through periodic phone calls or virtual meetings, to answer questions about those ratings and documentation and to provide further context for them as needed.

We utilize these ratings to filter the field of materials our panels review, focusing on those are aligned to college, career, and civic-readiness learning standards. Our panels leverage the documented rationales for these ratings to inform and ground their work.

Budget:

Services will be provided at no cost to DESE for the duration of the contract. (DESE will not contribute any funds to awarded bidders for the duration of this contract).

Requirements:

Responses must demonstrate organizational experience and expertise in evaluating core curricular materials. Bidders must demonstrate and fulfill these requirements:

1. Extensive familiarity with the content and rigor of national and/or Massachusetts-specific college, career, and civic-readiness standards, including:

a. K-5 Evidence-Based Early Literacy: Alignment to grade-level English language arts/literacy standards within the full core literacy block, including explicit and systematic foundational skills instruction (phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency).

b. English Language Development Standards Framework (WIDA 2020): Supporting English / multilingual learners’ English language development through the “Big Ideas” of the WIDA 2020 standards: Equity of Opportunity and Access, Integration of Content and Language, Collaboration among Stakeholders, and Functional Language Use (i.e., the extent to which materials address WIDA 2020 language uses, functions, and features to support language development alongside content).

c. Ratings must be generated through a thorough, consistent, and transparent evaluation process led by a group, panel, or team of qualified educators. This evaluation must result in publicly available, user-friendly, comprehensive reports with detailed documentation of qualitative rationales for quantitative ratings.

2. Bidders must remain available for periodic virtual meetings or phone calls with DESE staff regarding specific findings and other data points, or the processes used to generate and document ratings.

Preferred:

Curricular evaluations are conducted on a sustained basis with reports published at regular intervals to inform and support annual CURATE review scheduling.

Submission Requirements:

Respond to prompts 1-6 in narrative format, maintaining the numbering provided.

1. Credentials:

a. Specify the exact disciplines / content areas (e.g., English language arts, science) and grade bands (e.g., K–12) for which your organization is qualified to conduct curriculum evaluations.

b. Detail the professional expertise of reviewers in both subject-matter content and culturally & linguistically responsive pedagogy. Evidence should include specific experience in K–12 classroom instruction, curriculum development, or educational research.

2. Methodology: Describe the end-to-end curriculum evaluation process. Provide specific evidence of how the vendor manages the review team, panel, or group of teachers or subject matter experts through formal training and calibration. Documentation should demonstrate how these protocols maintain rating consistency, uphold objectivity, and mitigate implicit bias throughout the evaluation.

3. Standards Alignment: Describe the specific review tools used to assess alignment to national or Massachusetts-specific college, career, and civic-readiness standards. The response must also explicitly address alignment to:

a. Evidence-Based Early Literacy Foundational Skills: As applicable to ELA/Literacy K–5 evaluations, describe the criteria and tools used to evaluate for alignment to explicit and systematic foundational skills instruction, including phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency (i.e., the “science of reading”).

b. English Language Development Standards (WIDA 2020): The response details how evaluations measure alignment to English language development standards and specifically these three of the four “Big Ideas” defined by the WIDA 2020: Equity of Opportunity and Access, Integration of Content and Language, Collaboration among Stakeholders, and Functional Language Use.

4. Capacity:

a. Provide evidence of your organizational expertise of the current educational publishing landscape and the instructional shifts of current college, career, and civic-readiness standards and that define high-quality instructional materials (HQIM).

b. The vendor applies a formal equity lens to all curriculum reviews to assess the degree to which materials are inclusive and accessible, evaluating for representation (accurate and diverse portrayal of identities, cultures, and perspectives), universal access (Universal Design for Learning features that provide students with disabilities and multilingual learners access to grade-level content), and detecting bias (stereotypes, omissions, or deficit-based framing).

c. Provide sample reports for the specific content areas and grade spans for which the vendor is qualified. These samples should demonstrate the organization’s ability to serve as a CURATE gateway evaluator, highlighting clarity, depth of evidence, and user-friendliness for educators.

5. Neutrality and Conflict of Interest:

a. Statement of Independence: Provide a formal statement guaranteeing that the organization is not a curriculum publisher and does not profit from the sale of specific curricular products.

b. Disclosure of Financial Interest: If the organization or any proposed personnel holds a financial interest in curricular materials currently used in the field, the bidder must identify the specific materials in question and detail a mitigation plan. This plan should establish clear boundaries to prevent the organization or relevant personnel from participating in the review or reporting of those specific materials.

c. Internal Compliance Protocol: Describe the internal protocols used to uphold organizational and reviewer independence by preventing financial, professional, or personal ties to education publishers. These protocols should include methods for ongoing monitoring and conflict-of-interest disclosures for all staff, teacher panelists, facilitators, and report writers. Note: DESE reserves the right to review publisher contracts and internal conflict-of-interest documentation to verify these claims.

6. Availability:

a. Confirm the organization’s capacity to provide sustained technical assistance to DESE.

b. Explicitly agree to provide timely clarifications on findings, methodologies, or specific data points as requested by DESE on an as-needed basis.

7. Required Forms:

a. Attachment B: Contact information form (complete and upload with COMMBUYS submission).

Responses MUST be uploaded to COMMBUYS. Responses not posted to COMMBUYS will not be considered for evaluation. Do not email and/or mail responses to the department.

To respond to this bid, please register on the COMMBUYS website. If you need assistance, contact the OSD Help Desk at OSDHelpDesk@mass.gov or (8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. ET Monday – Friday) at 1-888-627-8283 or 617-720-3197.

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