U.S. Department of Education, OCFO, Contracts & Purchashing Operations, Support Services Group, 7th & D Street, SW, Room 3616, ROB-3, Washington, DC 20202-4443

A -- INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS TO INTRACTABLE LARGE SCALE ASSESSMENT ISSUES SOL RN971090 DUE 021097 POC LaShawn Flemming, Procurement Assistant, 202-205-0177 Innovative Solutions to Intractable Large Scale Assessment Issues SOL RN971090 DUE 02/10/97. This is a combined synopsis/solicitation only here no hard copies will be mailed. The Department of Education is issuing a Request for Quotations for The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) services for which the Government intends to award 11 firm fixed price Simplified Acquisitions. This notice is intended for competitive proposals from Small Business concerns. All proposals received by 2:00 pm on 2/10/97 will be considered by the Government. The contractor shall provide a written report(s) and oral briefing and discussion with ED Officials, addressing solution(s) to ONE of the following areas related to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP): 1.)Improving school participation; 2.)Increasing motivation of students; 3.) Improving background questionnaires and SES reporting; 4.) Reducing sample size; 5.) Computerized or paper-based adaptive testing of NAEP; 6.) Intelligent computer-aided scoring; 7.) Innovative reporting; 8.) Market basket approach to analysis and reporting; 9.) International benchmarking of NAEP; 10.) Merge National and State samples; 11.) Link long-term and cross-sectional assessments. Multiple proposals can be submitted from each vendor. The period of performance is 3 months. PROPOSAL GUIDELINES The bidder must address; 1.) Incremental Cost estimates to the NAEP project, if the innovation were to be implemented; 2.) The estimated time to implement the proposed idea to NAEP; and 3.) The technical aspects(positive and negative) associated with the innovation. Bidders should demonstrate the applicant's understanding of the nature of NAEP and the task involved, and the capability of successfully completing the report. Evidence of this understanding should be fully demonstrated in the proposal, including a budget for the period of the project. (3 months) Applicants must identify the project director, other key staff members, and any outside consultants who would be employed and assigned to each task and provide biographical information about each key staff member. TECHNICAL EVALUATION CRITERIA 25% Understanding of the National Assessment of Educational Progress 50% Technical adequacy of the proposed innovation 25% Personnel Qualifications Hard copies of the RFQ are not available. The Internet addresses are: http://gcs.ed.gov or gopher://gcs.ed.gov. See Contract Information/Documents On-Line Menu. ED BBS for dial-up computer users at (202) 260-9950. The BBS has four 14,400 bps modems. New users create their ID and password at logon. At the BBS main menu, select Contract RFP and Work Statement On-Line for available contract documents. For questions only on GCS Web or ED Board BBS, contact Audrey Hawkins at (202) 708-8503 or George Wagner at (202)708-7811. Proposals should be submitted to the address above. See Note 1. (0023)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0001 19970128\A-0001.SOL)