U.S. Department of Education, Contracts and Purchasing Operations, CPO, Support Services Group, 7th & D Streets SW, Room 3616, Washington, D.C. 20202-4443

B -- NATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF ADULT LITERACY SOL EDOERI-99-000370 DUE 051599 POC Nadine Kim, Contract Specialist, (202) 260-1679 Notice of Information -- The United States Department of Education has a requirement for a complex national study that includes an assessment of the English-language literacy skills of American adults and a survey data collection based on an extensive background questionnaire. This project has several purposes. One is to describe and explain the nature, extent, and current status of the literacy abilities(prose, document, and quantitative literacy/numeracy) of adults in the United States. The second purpose is to measure and report changes in literacy abilities of the nation's adults over time. That is, NAAL will provide indicators of trends in the prose and document literacy proficiencies of the U.S. adult population since 1992 and of the young adult population since 1985. Thus, the project seeks to collect data that not only explain key predictors and outcomes of literacy but also are comparable to those from prior national surveys conducted by NCES(National Center for Education Statistics). A third objective is to inform federal and state policy and programs. Toward this end, the NAAL seeks to provide literacy estimates by state of the literacy skills of major subpopulations of adults and to facilitate statewide evaluations of literacy results. A secondary aim of this project is to provide a basis for comparisons between the literacy abilities and educational experiences of American adults and those of adults in other countries. The opening date of the RFP EDOERI-99-000370 will be 04/01/99 and the closing date: 05/15/99. Posted 03/18/99 (I-SN310006). (0077)

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