Early Literacy Screening Assessments in Grades K-3

Background

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) is issuing a Departmental Master Agreement (MA) to approve early literacy screening assessments for students in grades K-3. The goal is to identify effective assessments that meet specific criteria for early literacy screening in English, aimed at improving educational outcomes for young learners in Massachusetts.

Work Details

Vendors are required to submit early literacy screening assessments that include constructs such as Phonemic Awareness, Alphabetic Knowledge, Word Reading, Reading Comprehension, Oral Language, and Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN). The assessments must be designed to be administered at least twice per year in kindergarten and three times per year in grades 1-3. Specific requirements include: 1. Constructs measured must include phoneme segmentation, letter identification, decoding nonsense words, passage reading fluency, and listening comprehension. 2. Assessments must provide classification accuracy metrics with sensitivity and specificity greater than or equal to 0.70. 3. Results should yield composite percentile ranks and risk levels for each student. 4. A user-friendly report of student results for families must be included. 5. Professional development and technical support for educators using the assessment are required.

Period of Performance

The initial duration of the contract will commence upon approval and extend until June 30, 2031, with potential renewal options for up to 12 months.

Place of Performance

Services will be performed within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, specifically targeting public school districts.

Bidder Requirements

Bidders must comply with the Small Business Purchasing Program (SBPP) if applicable and demonstrate a commitment to supplier diversity by partnering with certified diverse businesses. Additionally, bidders may need to undergo Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) checks for personnel working directly with students.