RFI - NHES 729.docx

U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences

Request for Information (RFI) Support for the 2026 National Households Education Survey and the 2026 National Training, Education, and Workforce Survey April 19, 2024

PLEASE NOTE: All information contained in this notice is preliminary in nature and subject to change. This notice is issued solely for information and planning purposes and does not constitute a Request for Proposals (RFP), Request for Quotations (RFQ), Invitation for Bids (IFB), or a commitment on the part of the Government to conduct a solicitation in the future. All information provided is strictly voluntary and no reimbursement will be made by the Government for any costs associated with providing a response to this notice or otherwise participating in market research activities. Further, the U.S. Department of Education offers no assurance that a solicitation will result from this notice.

Overview This RFI is being issued for market research purposes. The responses to this RFI will be used to determine the best acquisition strategy, contract vehicle, and small business set aside status.

Description of the Requirement The purpose of this task is to support the National Household Education (NHES) Surveys program conducted by the Cross-sectional Surveys Branch (CSB) within the Sample Surveys Division of the (NCES) as well as coordination with related surveys. The task also supports CSB’s collaboration with the National Science Foundation and the Census Bureau to conduct the National Training and Education Workforce Survey (NTEWS) which is based on the NHES.

The contractor shall provide final datafiles and documentation for the 2026 NHES and support for the final files and documentation of the 2026 NTEWS collection. The planning for both collections are just beginning and the tasks in the PWS are needed to complete the work and successfully carry out both collections.

Please see attached PWS for further details.

Focus Questions Question 1 - Does your firm possess the following capabilities? If so, please explain and provide examples of similar work done in the past.

Subject Matter Expertise Focus Area 1: Experience with all stages of a large, federal household survey collection starting with at least 100,00 cases.

1. Writing and cognitively testing survey items for use on paper questionnaires and web instruments.

2. Designing and implementing a sampling scheme for an address-based survey collection to create a stratified, nationally representative sample with oversampling of certain hard to reach and low-incidence groups to achieve a final sample size of 20,000 cases or larger.

3. Designing a recruitment and collection scheme which uses innovative collection and contact methods to increase response rates and decrease non-response bias.

4. Conducting data editing and imputation (using multiple methods for imputation, such as logic-based imputation and hot-deck imputation) for nationally representative data collections with a sample of 10,000 cases or larger collected across multiple modes.

5. Producing weighting specifications for stratified nationally representative samples of households with a sample size of 20,000 cases or larger and implementing that weighting scheme successfully.

6. Experience using NCES datasets (Common Core of Data (CCD) and Private School Universe Survey (PSS)) and Census datasets (Current Population Survey (CPS) and American Community Survey (ACS)) to aid in the creation of weighting and sampling schemes.

7. Demonstrated experience developing and implementing a disclosure risk assessment plan in accordance with NCES standards on disclosure prevention. This should include experience with disclosure avoidance techniques such as perturbation.

8. Having recognized expertise (as demonstrated by publications in leading surveys methods and statistical journals) in the areas of survey collection sample design, weighting, survey data collection strategies, data processing and reporting from large complex education surveys and using that expertise to provide review of specifications and plans developed by others.

Subject Matter Expertise Focus Area 2: Demonstrated content expertise relevant to a household education survey.

1. Content expertise related to the measurement of each of the following topics:

· childcare

· parental involvement in schooling

· household characteristics

· home schooling and virtual schooling

· occupational certification and licensing

2. Publications and reports that have analyzed data on occupational certification and licensing, homeschooling and childcare. Using NCES datasets including the High School Longitudinal Study (HSLS), National Household Education Survey (NHES), National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS), Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), and Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). The contractor should provide an example of an original analysis using the NHES, HSLS, or PIAAC to demonstrate their experience with using one of these datasets. The analysis should include only one figure (e.g., a table or graph) showing the results of the original analysis, as well as one to three paragraphs describing the findings of the figure. This analysis should be completely new and should not have been completed using government funds on any other contract.

3. Translating survey and recruitment materials and questionnaire items from English to Spanish for a general population.

4. Experience working on survey collections with the U.S. Census Bureau as a data collector, and experience reviewing U.S. Census Bureau mailing, data capture and web instrument specifications.

Subject Matter Expertise Focus Area 3: Demonstrated experience writing and revising federal reports for national publication and dissemination.

1. Producing multiple statistical tables and analytic reports for nationally representative data collections across multiple rounds of revisions simultaneously with quick turnaround times (less than ten business days per review cycle).

2. Experience applying statistical standards of NCES or standards from a federal statistical agency in datafile creation, analysis and publication.

Question 2 - Is your company a small business? If so, what is your socioeconomic status across the proposed NAICS code?

Question 3 - Does your company offer these services on one or more contract vehicles (e.g. GSA Schedule, PRESTO, OASIS, other agency contract vehicle, etc.)?

Question 4 - Do you have feedback on the requirement as drafted?

Question 5 - Are you able to respond to this requirement on a firm-fixed price basis? If not, what tasks are you unable to price and why?

Submission Instructions Responses may be submitted in MS Word or PDF format. Responses are limited to 30 pages.

All interested parties are invited to submit formal responses via e-mail to the contacts listed below. Responses are due no later than 10:00am Eastern Time on 20 May 2024.

Contact Information

Points of Contact

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