PAARC releases RFP for testing of assessment elements....

PARCC - the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers - is a 24-state consortium led by non-profit Achieve - recently released a request for propoosals (RFP) through the Indiana Department of Administration (IDPA) for the item tryouts, field testing, embedded research, practice tests, and forms construction for the first operational year of the assessment in English language arts/literacy and mathematics.   The RFP specifies the development of technical and cost options for administering and scoring PARCC operational assessments in 2014-2015. Elements include: 

• Item tryout: The purpose of the item tryout is to better understand how assessment items, tasks, and innovations are functioning and to refine test administration, data collection, scoring materials and procedures. Item tryouts will occur in the spring of 2013.
• Field testing: The purpose of the field test is to administer items and tasks to representative samples of students across PARCC states in order to generate the data necessary to assemble multiple forms for operational testing in 2014-2015 and beyond. Field testing will occur in the spring of 2014.
• Operational forms: The RFP calls for vendors to use the item/task data generated by the field test to assemble multiple test forms for each content area (English language arts/literacy and mathematics) and for each of the grades 3-11. For mathematics at the high school level, forms will be assembled for each of six end-of-course assessments.
• Embedded research: A total of seven research studies will be conducted to inform operational test administration, scoring procedures and the development of metrics for reporting the results of operational assessments. Research activities will occur throughout the item tryout and field test phases, as well as during summer 2013 following item tryouts.
• Cost option: The RFP includes a request for the administration and scoring of the first operational exam and a standalone field test during the first operational year, as a cost option to PARCC. PARCC may choose to exercise this option and include these activities under a contract that will be assigned to the new PARCC operational organization after the grant period.

Vendors have until November 27, 2012 to submit proposals. 

RFP 13-29 can be found at http://www.in.gov/idoa/proc/bids/RFP-13-29/

Questions about the RFP may be directed to the Indiana Department of Administration

Learn more about PARCC, visit www.parcconline.org, on Twitter at http://twitter.com/PARCCPlace, or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/PARCC