National assessment of educational progress (NAEP) alliance 2013 -2017

CONTRACTOR AWARDEE:
Educational Testing Services (ETS)
660 Rosedale Road
Princeton, NJ 08541
DUNS: 13-739-6487

ED-IES-13-C-0015
Planning and Coordination
$26,301,512

ED-IES-13-C-0017
Design, Analysis and Reporting
$91,204,217

ED-I ES-13-C-0018
Item Development
$51,616,595

CONTRACTOR AWARDEE:
Westat
1600 Research Boulevard
Rockville, MD 20850
DUNS: 04-950-8120

ED-IES-13-C-0019
Sampling and Data Collection
$313,901,146

ED-IES-13-C-0020
Support and Service Center
$36,241,681

CONTRACTOR AWARDEE:
NCS Pearson, Inc.
2510 N. Dodge Street
Iowa City, lA 52245
DUNS: 07-632-5252

ED-IES-13-C-0021
Materials, Distribution, Processing and Scoring
$122,065,166

CONTRACTOR AWARDEE:
Fulcrum IT Services
5870 Trinity Parkway, Suite 400
Centreville, VA 20120
DUNS: 04-838-2386

ED-IES-13-C-0022
Web/Technology Development,
Operations and Maintenance
$51,804,994

CONTRACTOR AWARDEE:
Business Intelligence, Inc.
4031 University Drive, Suite 200
Fairfax, VA 22030
DUNS: 62-164-1005

ED-IES-13-C-0023
NAEP Scheduling
$8,498,804

Offerors are encouraged to submit all questions prior to June 6, 2012. Questions will be considered at any time prior to, or during, the conference; however, offerors will be asked to confirm verbal questions in writing. Subsequent to the conference an amendment containing an abstract of the questions and answers, and a list of attendees, will be made publicly available.

In order to facilitate conference preparations it is requested potential offerors provide names of persons who will attend to Scott.Frankel@ed.gov by June 6, 2012.

Offerors are cautioned that, notwithstanding any remarks, clarifications, or responses given at the conference, all terms and conditions of the solicitation remain unchanged unless they are changed by amendment. It is the responsibility of each offeror, prior to proposing, to seek clarification of any ambiguity created by amendment of the solicitation.

The conference date, time, and location will be sent out with Amendment 0001.

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) intends to initiate a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a requirement to enter into 5-year contracts with qualified entities to establish an Alliance/team of contractors to carry out the design, item development, sampling, materials preparation and distribution, data collection, scoring, analysis, reporting and scheduling of one of its flagship programs, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

NAEP is approaching its 45th anniversary as a mature program in a rapidly changing environment. It is incumbent on the program to maintain its historical role of reporting educational progress while at the same time accommodating and taking advantage of unprecedented changes in education, in education assessment, and in the learning sciences, as well as rapid advances in technology.

There are numerous environmental factors that will influence NAEP during this period, many of which will be referenced throughout this Performance Work Statement (PWS). Examples include:
 transition from a paper-and-pencil to technology-based assessment,
 the emerging interest in international comparisons for states and districts,
 advances in test development and new item types,
 development of measures of preparedness for post-secondary education and work,
 adoption of common content standards by most states that may or may not align with NAEP content frameworks,
 development of two separate common state-developed assessments based on the common core standards,
 inclusion of more contextual information in reports,
 growth of virtual schools and out-of-school and technology-based learning by students, and
 budget reductions throughout the education and assessment enterprises.

The Government anticipates eight contract awards from this solicitation. The Web/Technology Maintenance and Support and the Alliance Schedule Coordination contracts will be set aside for Small Business, or Small Disadvantaged Business, including 8(a), woman-owned small businesses, HUB Zone Small Businesses, and/or Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses.

Additional information pertaining to a pre-proposal conference will be provided at the time the solicitation is posted on fedbizopps.gov.

Below is a list of the contract components and assigned NAICS code:

NAEP Alliance Components and NAICS Code:

Planning and Coordination - 541720
Design, Analysis and Reporting - 541720
Item Development -  541720
Sampling and Data Collection - 541720
NAEP Support and Services Center - 541720
Materials, Distribution, Processing and Scoring - 541720
Web/Technology Maintenance and Support* - 519130
NAEP Scheduling* - 541618

*Small Business Set-Aside

As part of the overall technical proposal, Offerors will also be asked to submit technical and cost proposals for major optional task (separately for each assessment year).

The acquisition will be solicited using the procurement process prescribed in Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 15. Hybrid contracts which consist of Cost-Plus-Award-Fee and Firm-Fixed Price contracts are anticipated to be awarded for a period of 60 months.

Solicitation documents, plans and specifications will be exclusively available via the Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) homepage located at https://www.fbo.gov on or about April 27, 2012.

It is the contractor's responsibility to monitor FBO for any amendments. All contractors must be registered in the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) database at https://www.bpn.gov/ccr/default.aspx as required by FAR 4. 1102.

Interested businesses may submit written questions regarding this requirement to: Scott.Frankel@ed.gov.