Sole Source Determination Summary (Services)

Date: December 18, 2014

Commodity Specialist’s Name: Mike Weges

Commodity Specialist’s Recommendation: Approved Disapproved

If disapproved, agency contacted

Agency: Department of Education

Supplier Number: 164344

Supplier: Data Recognition Corp

Sole Source ID Number: 24332

Estimated Dollar Amount: $5 Million

Federal Funds: Yes No

Check box below and complete Agency name if request is over $250,000

The Department of General Services delegates to the Department of Education the authority to act as purchasing agency for the procurement of the service(s) listed below.

Please keep in mind that this delegation requires that you carry out this procurement according to requirements of Section 518 of the Commonwealth Procurement Code (62 Pa. C. S. 518) and to the policies and procedures outlined by DGS in the Procurement Handbook.

Services:

The Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) fulfills both federal (NCLB) and state (Chapter 4) testing requirements. Students are tested in Mathematics, English Language Arts (ELA), and Science. The mathematics, English language arts, and science assessment have both Multiple-Choice (MC) and Open-Ended (OE) items. Science has scenarios at grade 8 (MC scenarios) and the writing component of English language arts requires Constructed Responses to writing prompts and text-dependent analysis (TDA) prompts. Each assessment is tested at different grades. There are approximately 140,000 students per grade/subject for the PSSA. Mathematics: Grades 3-8 Approximately 840,000 students take the mathematics PSSA English Language Arts: Grades 3-8 – Approximately 840,000 students take the ELA PSSA Science: Grades 4 & 8 – Approximately 280,000 students take the science PSSA. This is a full-service contract covering item development, forms construction, printing, distribution and collection, scoring, and reporting for both paper/pencil and online assessments.

Agency Summary:

The Department of Education (PDE) seeks an 18 month contract extension on existing contract # 4400003075. The

Department of Education’s original intention was to have a procurement solicitation concluded and to have a new

contract in place by July 1, 2014. It is now almost six months past that date, allowing insufficient time to competently and successfully prepare for the PSSA administration in the spring of 2015. The current supplier is the only source to fulfill the requirements for a testing window which opens on April 13, 2015.

Procurement Summary:

It is the recommendation from DGS that this Single Source be approved for the following reasons:

First, the Department of Education’s original intention was to have the procurement concluded and to have a new contract in place by July 1, 2014. It is now almost two and one-half months past that date, allowing insufficient time to competently and successfully prepare for the PSSA administration in the spring of 2015, for which the testing window opens on April 13, 2015; and for the 2015 Keystone Exams, for which the testing window opens on May 12, 2015. This means that the successful vendor would have to: develop test designs, prepare test mock-ups for review, develop a system for on-line assessment, obtain approval of both paper and on-line versions of the test, develop a system and collect student information for pre-code labels and test tickets, print the tests, develop and print answer books, package and ship the tests, and develop, print and ship test administration manuals. All of this work would have to be completed such that the PSSA tests would be delivered to all schools by no later than March 30, 2015, and the Keystone Exams by April 28, 2015. At this point, this is an almost impossible task since the Gant charts of the several responders have many dates that have already passed. In addition, the successful vendor must be prepared to perform a new task this year, which involves hosting and providing training for the Online Test Administration Training Module, which must be in place and available for use in October 2014

Second, this year is an extremely critical period for Pennsylvania’s assessments. The Keystone Exams, which are being prepared at present, will be administered in the spring of 2015 and constitute “high stakes” examinations. For the first time, Pennsylvania students in the graduating class of 2017 and beyond will have to obtain proficiency on the Keystone Exams in order to graduate. Many of these students will be taking the Keystone Exams in 2015. Even more significantly, student results on the spring PSSA tests and Keystone Exams will be a factor in the evaluation of educators and could impact their advancement, pay and continued employment. Because of the heightened importance of these assessments, the Commonwealth must ensure a smooth and successful transition.

Third, 2014 is also a critical year in terms of the Commonwealth’s compliance with federal law and its implementation of Pennsylvania’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act Flexibility Waiver (ESEA Waiver). Under the ESEA Waiver, commencing with the 2013 assessments, PDE committed to “closing the achievement gap” by 50% not only for historically underperforming students, but for all students over a six-year period. Although a baseline or benchmark was set in 2013, that baseline will need to be reset in 2015. This is a result of the 2014-15 assessments for English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics, being aligned with the newly revised PA Core Standards. Thus, the results of these 2014-15 assessments will establish the new baseline for reporting the “closing the achievement gap” measures for Mathematics/Algebra I and ELA/Literature as reported for federal accountability annual measurable objectives (AMO)s. The 2015 “closing the achievement gap” indicators will also contribute to the School Performance Profile (SPP) building score. The SPP building level score represents the building level data component of the newly implemented educator effectiveness rating system. Thus, having a fair and consistent measure of calculating “closing the achievement gap” performance is critical. Establishing the 2014-15 performance as the baseline year supports this objective. Since the 2014-15 test results will be used as baseline data, these results must be completely valid and reliable. There can be no room for error.

Finally, upon more careful reflection, the Department of Education seeks to align the PSSA tests and Keystone Exam assessment contracts. The PSSA testing contract is currently set to expire on December 31, 2014, whereas the Keystone Exam contract expires on June 30, 2015.

Bureau of Procurement
555 Walnut Street, Forum Place 6th Floor | Harrisburg, PA 17101
717.787.5733 | F 717.783.6241 | www.dgs.state.pa.us

Revision: 2-3-2011