Attachment_B_Academic_Language_Capability_Statement_Instructions.pdf

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION SCIENCES

IMPACT EVALUATION OF ACADEMIC LANGUAGE INTERVENTIONS

SOLICITATION # ED-IES-15-R-0024

CAPABILITY STATEMENT INSTRUCTIONS

The U.S. Department of Education (the Department) is conducting market research to determine if sufficient interest and capability exists in the marketplace for the “Impact Evaluation of

Academic Language Interventions” requirement. The Department seeks information on the extent to which there are small business sources that possess all of the necessary qualifications, skills and knowledge to execute the work set forth in the .DRAFT Academic Language

Performance Work Statement, in its entirety.

While Large businesses, non-profits and academic institution may submit capability statements, this notice seeks to identify small businesses in various socio-economic categories, particularly those in the service disabled veteran owned and HubZone categories. Large businesses may submit capability statements addressing “Part 2: Feedback on Anticipated

Acquisition Strategy,” but large businesses shall not address Part 1. Vendors should note that choosing to not submit a capability statement will not prohibit any vendor from submitting a proposal if a solicitation is released.

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code for this procurement is

541720 (“Research and Development in the Social Sciences and Humanities”), and the small business size standard is $20,500,000.

The Anticipated Acquisition Strategy for this procurement is listed as a ‘Full and Open

Competitive Acquisition’ on the Department’s Forecast of Contracting Opportunities. However, the final solicitation strategy will be determined by the Contracting Officer after all market research and vendor engagement activities have concluded. The anticipated contract type is

Hybrid in nature, as the PWS contains both Firm Fixed Price (FFP) and Cost Reimbursement

(CR) tasks.

Disclaimer: The Department will not pay for the provision of any information nor will it compensate any respondents for providing this information. This notice is NOT A REQUEST

FOR PROPOSALS, and in no way obligates the Government to award any contract to any interested party. Feedback will not be provided to any interested party who submitted information to the Department in response to this notice.

Capability Statement Submission Deadline

The deadline for submitting Capability Statements is Wednesday April 22, 2015 by 12:00 noon

(ET) via e-mail to the following: Stephen.Madsen@ed.gov, and cc Veronica.Price@ed.gov.

mailto:Stephen.Madsen@ed.gov mailto:Veronica.Price@ed.gov

Capability Statement Instructions and Format

Each capability shall consist of two parts:

Part 1: Capabilities – This section must not exceed 4 pages (single-spaced, with a minimum of one-inch margins and 12 point font). Part 1 shall address the “Capability

Content Areas” shown below.

The file name of the capability statement shall be “[Name of Company] Capability

Statement (ED-IES-15-R-0024) ([Date submitted]),” for example “ABC Company

Capability Statement (ED-IES-15-R-0024) (April 22, 2015).pdf.”

The subject line of the email shall be “Capability Statement for ED-IES-15-R-0024

([Name of Company]),” for example “Capability Statement for ED-IES-15-R-0024 (ABC

Company).” Capability statements shall be submitted as a single combined document in either MSWord or PDF format.

Cover Page: Capability statements must contain a cover page (which does not count toward the page limit) that provides:

The name of the company.

The vendor’s DUNS number.

The website address of the company (if applicable).

A statement certifying that the vendor meets the size standard of NAICS 541720 (i.e., $20,500,000).

A statement as to whether the vendor qualifies as a small business in any of the following socio economic categories: minority-owned, small disadvantaged; women-owned; service-disabled veteran-owned; or HUBZone.

The point of contact (name, phone number, email address) for the vendor’s company.

A statement certifying that the vendor has active an System for Award Management

(SAM) registration, or a statement describing the current status and when the vendor expects to achieve active SAM status.

If the vendor has any Federal schedule contracts, the contract numbers for each schedule.

Part 2: Feedback on Anticipated Acquisition Strategy – This section must not exceed 2 pages (single-spaced, with a minimum of one-inch margins and 12 point font). In this section, interested parties may provide feedback on the Draft PWS (e.g., errors, unclear sections, inadequate areas), NAICS Code and contract type selection, as well as the anticipated acquisition strategy.

CAPABILITY CONTENT AREAS

The capability statement must describe the collective expertise and experience of key personnel, in each of the following areas:

Experience and skill in designing, managing, and conducting large-scale multi-site random assignment studies in school settings. Interested parties shall provide no more than two examples of evidence of key personnel’s successful past experience designing, managing, and conducting large-scale random assignment evaluations in school settings, including selecting intervention developers/trainers, recruiting districts and schools across the country to participate in random assignment and implementation of interventions, coordinating training of schools across the country on the intervention, and conducting data collection. Interested parties shall indicate the specific role that key personnel played on such evaluations.

Experience and skill in designing, managing, and conducting random assignment studies involving subpopulations of students, including but not limited to English language learners. Interested parties shall provide evidence of no more than two examples of their personnel’s successful past experience designing, managing, and conducting random assignment studies involving English language learners, including knowledge of the issues related to educating English language learners and conducting longitudinal data collection with this population.

Substantive knowledge of education issues relevant to English language learners and academic language interventions for both English language learners and disadvantaged students who are native English speakers. Interested parties shall provide evidence of no more than two examples demonstrating personnel’s content knowledge regarding English language learners and academic language interventions.

This information should demonstrate that personnel possess the substantive knowledge to develop study designs, data collection forms, select data collection instruments, and recommend policy-relevant analyses.

Experience and skill in applying the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards and WWC systematic review process in assessing research studies.

Interested parties shall provide evidence of personnel’s WWC reviewer certification.

Experience and skill in intervention implementation support. Interested parties shall provide evidence of no more than two examples demonstrating successful past experience supporting the implementation of education interventions in the context of a rigorous evaluation.

Experience and expertise in the selection and development of valid and reliable measures of fidelity and student outcomes. Interested parties shall provide evidence of key personnel’s expertise and successful past experience in the selection and development of valid and reliable measure of intervention implementation fidelity as well measures of student’s English language development.

Experience and skill in large-scale data collection efforts in multiple districts across the country. Interested parties shall provide evidence of no more than two examples demonstrating personnel’s successful experience with the collection of data (including primary data collection and administrative data/student records) in national education evaluation studies of at least 50 schools over a short time frame (2-3 month data collection periods).

Experience and skill in the use of analytic techniques to estimate the impacts of education interventions and report the results clearly and accurately. Interested parties shall provide no more than two examples demonstrating personnel’s successful past experience conducting credible data analyses using sophisticated analytic methods involving extensive amounts of data from different sources.

In addition, the capability statement should address the following experience and capacity at the corporate level:

Experience conducting projects similar in nature to that described in the draft

PWS. Interested parties shall provide evidence of successful corporate experience with past projects that are similar to that described in the draft PWS in terms of the specific tasks to be performed and the level of effort required, including but not limited to:

designing and conducting large-scale random assignment studies in a school setting, running a competition to select developers/providers/education interventions for an evaluation study, and implementation of an education intervention within the context of an evaluation study. No more than two examples shall be provided.

Sufficient capacity in terms of numbers of highly skilled staff. Interested parties shall provide evidence that they have a sufficient number of highly skilled staff (see the criteria listed above) to conduct large-scale data collection efforts (nationwide in multiple states and districts, both primary data collection as well as collection of administrative records) over a short time frame, to conduct sophisticated analyses on many data sources in a timely fashion, to create clear, policy-relevant reports in a timely fashion, and to create a firewall to maintain independence between staff involved in the support of intervention implementation and staff involved in the evaluation.

No conflicts of interest that would call into question the independence of the evaluation. Interested parties shall provide a statement that they possess no corporate or individual conflicts of interest.