Class JOFOC (Redacted).pdf

United States Department of Education Office of Finance and Operations Contracts and Acquisitions Management

This document contains proprietary or procurement sensitive information related to the conduct of a federal agency procurement and shall not be disclosed to any person other than a person authorized by the Contracting Officer to receive information.

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION (JOFOC)

Pursuant to the requirements of the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) as implemented by FAR 6.3 and in accordance with the requirements by FAR 6.303-1, the justification for the use of the statutory authority under FAR 6.3 is justified by the following facts and rationale required under FAR 6.303-2 as follows:

1. Identification of the agency and the contracting activity.

Agency: U. S. Department of Education Contracting Activity: Contracts and Acquisitions Management

2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved.

This Class Justification and Approval (J&A) for Other Than Full and Open Competition has been prepared by the United States Department of Education's (Department) Contracts and Acquisitions Management (CAM) contracting activity. The following recommendations and rationale supporting this J&A were presented by the Department's Institute of Education Sciences (IES).

The Department intends to award sole source bridge contracts to allow for the work described below to conclude seamlessly. The information supporting the recommended action, as presented by IES, is set forth under Section 5 of this document.

3. A complete description of the supplies and/or services required to meet the agency’s needs.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education (Department) has the following mission:

(1) to collect and analyze education information and statistics in a manner that meets the highest methodological standards; (2) to report education information and statistics in a timely manner; and (3) to collect, analyze, and report education information and statistics in a manner that: (A) is objective, secular, neutral, and non-ideological and is free of partisan political influence and racial, cultural, gender, or regional bias; and (B) is relevant and useful to practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and the public. P.L. 107-279, Part C, Sec. 151(b);

H.R. 3801, Part C, Sec. 151(b), 2002.

The Department awarded a series of multiple-award Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts called “Education Statistics Support Institute Network” (ESSIN) on December 15, 2011, to a total of nine (9) vendors. The purpose of the ESSIN contract awards is to provide the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), within IES, technical assistance and expert advice it requires to support its national and international data collections and assessments, analyses, methodological research, statistical product preparation, and training programs. The ESSIN contractors also assist NCES in responding to the changing needs of data users, adapting rapidly to changing priorities and policies, and incorporating the latest scientific advances in how statistical assessment studies are designated, fielded, analyzed, and reported.

This document contains proprietary or procurement sensitive information related to the conduct of a federal agency procurement and shall not be disclosed to any person other than a person authorized by the Contracting Officer to receive such information.

Currently, the master ESSIN IDIQs expired on December 31, 2021. The task orders with remaining work have continued their effort with the incumbent contractors identified under Section 5 via a 6-month extension in accordance with FAR 52.217-8 “Option to Extend Services”. Also, these task orders do not allow for a logical break in services without hindering IES. The period of performance of those task orders are set to expire in accordance with the dates provided in Section 5. However, the Department requires continuity of service for those awards by the incumbent contractor to ensure that all work can be completed in whole without having to sever work that is yet come to an appropriate completion.

4. An identification of the statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition.

The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 41 U.S.C. § 3304(a)(1), as implemented by FAR Subpart 6.302-1 entitled, "Only One Responsible Source and No Other Supplies or Services Will Satisfy Agency Requirements."

5. A demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the authority cited.

The identified contractors are uniquely qualified to execute the scope of work to allow the remaining work for each of the ESSIN task orders identified below to come to a closure, based on their legacy knowledge of the existing cycles and have successfully reviewed and contributed to the development of documentation files, data collection.

Contracts and Acquisitions Management

This document contains proprietary or procurement sensitive information related to the conduct of a federal agency procurement and shall not be disclosed to any person other than a person authorized by the Contracting Officer to receive information.

Current Contract Number

Contractor Contract Type

Period of Performance

Estimated Contract

Value

Summary of the Description of Services Rationale

Task Order 5

ED-IES-12-D-

0005/0001 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS) Support

American Institutes for Research

Firm-Fixed Price

6/1/22-9/30/23 $530,649

This project supports the collection of nationally representative survey of schools, teachers, and principals through NTPS as well as coordination with related follow-up surveys, the Principal Follow-up Survey (PFS) and the Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS). The requirement provides support following the release of the NTPS 2021 datafiles and documentation and provides final datafiles and documentation for the TFS and PFS, for which data collection is currently underway.

Data Collection for TFS and PFS will not be completed until June 2022, and the data processing and publication of the First Looks for the NTPS are currently under way. The contractor will finalize the First Look Reports, release the datasets, user manuals and codebooks for each of the datasets associated with the NTPS/TFS/PFS collections.

Task Order 7

ED-IES-12-D-

0002/0001 Annual Report and Information Staff

(ARIS)

American Institutes for Research

Cost Reimbursable

6/1/22-11/30/23 $7,532,419

This project includes development of the Digest of Education modernization, production of the Condition of Education (CoE) reports and production of annual Digest of Education. This includes data processing, data editing, reporting authoring, web development, dissemination activities, quality control, project management and other support activities to develop and release statistical information.

IES requires a continued effort to complete the congressionally mandated CoE reports, finalization of the Digest of Education modernization, and submission of final deliverables.

Task Order 9

ED-IES-12-D-

0002/0002 International Activities Support Task

American Institutes for Research

Firm-Fixed Price and Cost-reimbursable

5/1/22-4/30/23 $5,070,122

The purpose of this contract is to provide the International Activities Branch (IAB) with support for data development and research, analysis, and reporting activities associated with IAB's international school-based and adult assessments and surveys, indicator projects, and other international cross-cutting projects. This effort includes supports with all the on-going international assessments (ILSAs). Six ILSAs are currently active including ICILS, TIMSS, TALIS, PIAAC, PIRLS, and PISA as well as the international standards and requirements of international partners. Success of ILSAs require close coordination and compressed schedules for IAB to meet its international and contractual commitments.

Continued effort is needed for the completion of International Activities Support for all ILSAs. Given the tight schedule for IAB to meet its international and contractual commitments over the next year, a new vendor will not have the requisite time that is needed to transition the current work.

Interruption of ongoing work jeopardizes all ILSAs.

This document contains proprietary or procurement sensitive information related to the conduct of a federal agency procurement and shall not be disclosed to any person other than a person authorized by the Contracting Officer to receive such information.

Task Order 14

ED-IES-12-D-

0002/0004 Assessment Division Support

American Institutes for Research

Firm-Fixed Price

6/1/22-5/31/23 $12,500,000

The NCES Assessment Division (AD) requirement supports the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) which is currently in the field with two surveys collecting congressionally mandated information. The work that remains for NCES to satisfy its congressional mandate includes:

1) Technical review of LTT report with memo. This will be post NCES, IES and Chief Statistician review and will outline areas that need to be addressed before making report public,

2) Beginning review of main NAEP data to include data cleaning,

3) Drafting memos to tie previous COVID conversations in with current results, and

4) Observing cognitive labs and writing a report for NCES to consider when deciding which items to include in field trail and/or what changes to make.

Generally, the NAEP program performs work on a two-year cycle.

School closures due to the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted our usual data collections and analysis, leading to reduced amount of time to complete this work -- what normally would take 18 months to complete, must now be completed in 12 months. The remaining work that needs to be completed is imperative to fulfill NCES’ congressional mandates. A transition of services jeopardizes this effort along with the broader NAEP program due to the lack of time needed to transition a new vendor.

Task Order 15

ED-IES-12-D-

0002/0011 Assessment Division Support

Optimal Solutions Group

Firm-Fixed Price

6/1/22-5/31/23 $1,404,000

The NCES Assessment Division (AD) requirement supports the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) which is currently in the field with two surveys collecting congressionally mandated information. The work that remains for NCES to satisfy its congressional mandate includes:

1) Delivery of pre-release booklets for LTT,

2) Data analysis on main NAEP data including table shell development,

3) Pre-release booklet for Main NAEP,

4) Uploading of COVID policies and practices to data tool,

5) Memo summarizing COVID policies and practices that may be related to NAEP (both LTT and Main NAEP) results, and

6) Quick turnaround requests, particularly around knowledge of COVID and its impact on NAEP scores.

Generally, the NAEP program performs work on a two-year cycle.

School closures due to the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted our usual data collections and analysis, leading to reduced amount of time to complete this work -- what normally would take 18 months to complete, must now be completed in 12 months. The remaining work that needs to be completed is imperative to fulfill NCES’ congressional mandates. A transition of services jeopardizes this effort along with the broader NAEP program due to the lack of time needed to transition a new vendor.

This document contains proprietary or procurement sensitive information related to the conduct of a federal agency procurement and shall not be disclosed to any person other than a person authorized by the Contracting Officer to receive such information.

Task Order 19

0002/0007 Support for Longitudinal Studies

American Institutes for Research

Firm-Fixed Price

6/1/22-5/31/23 $1,812,000

The purpose of this contract is to provide the Longitudinal Surveys Branch (LSB) with support for design and reporting activities associated with major data collection projects and statistical studies. The scope of work, deliverables, and schedule of deliverables are organized around these study needs.

LSB requires a continued effort to complete current activities supporting design and reporting for the current data collection projects throughout NCES and submission of final deliverables.

Task Order 20

ED-IES-12-D-

0002/0008 CRDC

Data Products and Analysis Support

American Institutes for Research

Firm-Fixed Price

6/1/22-6/30/23 $283,000

This ongoing project supports NCES’ work related to the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) through two distinct areas of work: completing time-sensitive data requests using CRDC data and performing analysis/research to improve CRDC data quality and publicly available CRDC data products. This includes the creation of national and state estimates of key figures from data submitted at the level of individual schools and K-12 districts.

2022 represents the first time that two separate administrations of the CRDC will occur during the same year. One collection is currently open and underway, and OCR is planning to open a second collection in the fall. This is a unique situation that presents considerable risks for ED as NCES will need to operate two efficient, high-quality data collections involving every K-12 school district in the nation. Both administrations are time sensitive and bifurcating them would double the existing schedule and price risks of the effort by reducing efficiencies gained from a joint effort.

Task Order 21

ED-IES-12D-

0009/0002 Education Demographic and Geographic Estimates (EDGE) Program

SANAMET

RIX

Firm-Fixed Price

6/1/22-11/30/23 $2,000,000

This project provides technical assistance for EDGE program activities, technical assistance for the MapED portal, project management and administration, IT infrastructure assistance and administration, and CCD integration.

Continued effort is needed to complete the following tasks:

1) Assistance for the SIDE- SLDS poverty pilot program continues into Spring 2023;

2) Geospatial audit support and completion of ACS-ED web services will not be completed until Fall 2022;

3) System testing will not be completed due to Census ACS product delays.

This document contains proprietary or procurement sensitive information related to the conduct of a federal agency procurement and shall not be disclosed to any person other than a person authorized by the Contracting Officer to receive such information.

Task Order 25

0002/0006 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Support

American Institutes for Research

Firm-Fixed Price

7/1/22-6/30/23 $880,019

IPEDS is a system of interrelated surveys conducted annually by NCES. IPEDS gathers information from every college, university, and technical and vocational institution that participates in the federal student financial aid programs.

As a part of its mandate, NCES must study and develop solutions to new problems and issues that arise in the collection and analysis of education data. The support under required is in data collection and data operations. This includes helping develop new questions, getting any new questions added to survey forms, as well as being able to respond to data respondents and data users on any questions these new items may bring. Because part of the support is developing these new data items, it is imperative to have this same group be around to help answer questions as they come in.

Continued effort is needed to complete the process to communicate and implement changes to the IPEDS collection that were started during the final option period of Task 25.

Task Order 34

ED-IES-12-D-

0002/0011 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) Research and Evaluation

American Institutes for Research

Firm-Fixed Price

7/1/22-6/30/23 $365,000

The primary purpose of this effort is to support data quality review tasks, research, and evaluation of the CRDC data collection process. This includes the development and creation of CRDC-related research and/or data products that will be published by the NCES. The effort seeks to improve the overall quality, efficiency, and usability of the CRDC.

Contractors are expected to collaborate with NCES, the OCR, other ED program offices, and other contractors.

The current CRDC will not be completed until Summer of 2022 and a new collection is scheduled to open in fall 2022 requiring additional effort to support data quality resulting from that collection. Once the data collection is completed, the contractor will provide a final report based on their analysis, support improvements for the new collection and deliver recommendations for future CRDC operations beyond 2022. Both efforts are similar in nature and bifurcating them would double the existing schedule and price risks of the effort by reducing efficiencies gained from a joint effort.

This document contains proprietary or procurement sensitive information related to the conduct of a federal agency procurement and shall not be disclosed to any person other than a person authorized by the Contracting Officer to receive such information.

Task Order 35

0002/91990018F03 School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS) Support

American Institutes for Research

Firm-Fixed Price

6/1/22-12/1/23 $443,918

This project supports the collection of nationally representative survey of schools, teachers and principals through the School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS) which is the primary source of school-level data on crime and safety for the Department. The procurement involves assisting NCES with review of materials produced by the U.S. Census who conduct the study’s data collection, and preparing and releasing the First Look reports and datasets from the collection.

Data Collection will not be completed until June 2022. Once the data collection is completed, the contractor will produce the First Look Report, release the datasets, user’s manual and codebook.

Contracts and Acquisitions Management

This document contains proprietary or procurement sensitive information related to the conduct of a federal agency procurement and shall not be disclosed to any person other than a person authorized by the Contracting Officer to receive information.

6. A description of efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as is practicable.

After accounting for the above information, IES determined that no other source can reasonably provide the required services in a timely, efficient, and cost-effective manner. It was in IES’ best interest to solicit proposals from only the current incumbent contractors in order to ensure that the required services are received and that the requirements under existing task orders under the ESSIN IDIQ are completed in a timely and cost-efficient manner that yield high quality results. In accordance with FAR 6.305(d), CAM will post the required notice at the GPE (https://beta.sam.gov) for 30 days within 14 days after contract award.

7. A determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable.

The Contracting Officer determines that the anticipated price(s) will be fair and reasonable based on historical costs that have been evaluated, approved, and paid by the Government to date. Prior to award of the proposed bridge contracts, cost or price information shall be obtained from contractors and a price analysis will be performed as required by FAR 15.404-1 and documented to sufficiently determine that the cost to the Government of the proposed acquisition will be fair and reasonable.

In addition, the Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE) provided by IES ' subject matter experts, will assist in the determination of price reasonableness.

8. A description of the market research conducted and the results or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted.

After accounting for the previously mentioned information, it has been determined that there is no reasonable opportunity for any other contractor to perform the required services that are critical to ensuring that the remaining work under the ESSIN task orders identified are properly executed in a timely and cost-efficient manner. Therefore, it is not anticipated that barriers to competition can be overcome at this time, therefore no market research was conducted.

The Department is currently planning the re-compete of the ESSIN IDIQ and will conduct market research for all future actions, which will better allow for a level playing field and remove/reduce barriers to competition.

9. Any other fact supporting the use of other than full and open competition.

When 6.302-1 is cited for follow-on acquisitions as described in 6.302-1(a)(2)(ii), an estimate of the cost to the Government that would be duplicated and how the estimate was derived. Award to any other sources would result in a substantial duplication of cost to the Government that is not expected to be recovered through competition, as well as unacceptable delays in fulfilling the requirements.

This document contains proprietary or procurement sensitive information related to the conduct of a federal agency procurement and shall not be disclosed to any person other than a person authorized by the Contracting Officer to

At this time, it would not be in the best interest of the Government to recompete and award the work identified above to new vendors, as attempting to do so would result in a substantial duplication of cost to the Government that is not expected to be recovered through competition, as well as impose unacceptable operational and schedule delays. IES has incurred the following costs and labor efforts regarding the tasks requiring bridge contracts, as follows:

Legacy ESSIN Task Order Cost Hours Tasks 7 $4,476,303.00 33,907 Tasks 9 $5,079,864.00 26,030 Task 14 $11,726,948.00 106,593 Task 15 $2,257,632.00 27,451 Task 19 $2,565,254.00 17,464 Task 20 $144,786.00 1,087 Task 21 $543,515.00 4,213 Task 25 $585,771.00 4,289 Task 34 $340,644.00 1,874

TOTALS $27,720,717.00 222,908.00

If the previously noted surveys, data collections, research studies, and interagency efforts were to end before all requirements are fully completed, significant re-work of all products identified in the above legacy task orders will be necessary for new vendors to be able to begin addressing the remaining work. All the products mentioned have been developed, drafted, and specifications programmed on the incumbents’ data systems and would not require any duplication of work or services. IES anticipates that it would have to expend another $28M, in addition to the current contract costs of $27.7M, in contractor services and support to re-work the specifications, deliverables, and final products currently under development or nearing final development over the next 12 - 24 months. This amount pales in comparison to the lost value of the overall educational data sets and analytic comparisons that would be incurred as a result of the disruption that would be caused by allowing the current contract supporting these IES data collections and studies to end prior to their full completion.

If the schedule of activities related to the above legacy ESSIN task orders were to end prematurely and before full completion, NCES would be in violation of its legislative mandates under Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA) and Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Moreover, by not allowing the incumbents to complete the data collections, studies, and surveys underway in the highlighted legacy ESSIN task order contracts above, a multitude of IES’ data sets and research analyses will be deemed invalid due to imminent schedule and operational delays that will occur should the current work end prematurely and new contracts awarded to potential new vendors. Such harm is significant and will impugn the integrity, validity, and reliability of IES as an independent statistical agency that is federally mandated to monitor the real-time and longitudinal impacts to education in the United States, as well as timely comparisons of U.S. education performance with other nations. Once schedule and operational harms are incurred to these data collections and studies, the Government will not be able to overcome the damage to its statistical integrity should the opportunity to allow completion of all ongoing work is lost.

This document contains proprietary or procurement sensitive information related to the conduct of a federal agency procurement and shall not be disclosed to any person other than a person authorized by the Contracting Officer to

10. A listing of the sources, if any, that expressed, in writing, an interest in the acquisition.

Neither IES nor CAM have received any expressed interest from the vendor community in terms of performing the services required by this J&A. However, given the fact that the ESSIN IDIQ is currently pending a re-competition, it could be implied that any contractors who expressed interest in the ESSIN IDIQ re-compete have expressed interest in the services described in this J&A. Still, absent this implied assumption, no vendors have expressed interest or demonstrated the capability to provide the services in such a short amount of time necessary to successfully execute remaining work accounted for under this J&A.

11. A statement of the actions, if any, the agency will take to remove or overcome any barriers that led to restricted consideration before any subsequent acquisition for supplies and services is made.

Given the facts and circumstances surrounding these contract actions, there are no other actions that the Department can take to remove or overcome any barriers before the re-competition of the ESSIN IDIQ. The acquisition team has discussed that at the close of the ESSIN contracts identified above, no further work will require the historical knowledge developed by the incumbent. Any subsequent ESSIN services required after the conclusion of the period of performance of each task order that is subject to this J&A will be acquired by means of full and open competition or fair opportunity.

PROGRAM OFFICE CERTIFICATION OF ACCURACY AND COMPLETENESS

This is to certify that the portions of this justification developed by the undersigned program office personnel, including supporting information and data verifying the IES' minimum needs, schedule requirements and other rationale for other than full and open competition, are accurate and complete.

CONTRACTING OFFICER CERTIFICATION OF ACCURACY AND COMPLETENESS

In accordance with FAR 6.303-2 as the Contracting Officer for this effort, I hereby certify that the justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.