Contracts & Procurement

 The Florida Department of Education is PARCC’s fiscal agent and serves as the primary vehicle for PARCC procurements.  Interested organizations should register on the Florida Vendor Bid System.  While information about upcoming procurements will be listed on the PARCC website, the actual solicitation or procurement will be posted on Florida’s procurement website. Any questions about open solicitations or procurements should be directed to Florida, unless otherwise noted in the solicitation description.  

Solicitations:

There are no open solicitations at this time. 

Please check back for more information about upcoming PARCC procurements.

Current Contracts:

• State Technology Needs Assessment:  This contract was awarded to Pearson in partnership with Smarter Balanced.  More information about PARCC’s latest technology guidelines can be found here. PARCC also is committed to keeping state and local leaders informed as they prepare to administer the PARCC assessments in 2014-2015.
• Technology Architecture Services & Systems Implementation: This contract was awarded to Pacific Metrics.
• Item Development: This contract was awarded to ETS and Pearson. More information about PARCC’s design and item development can be found here.
• Educator Leader Cadres: This contract was awarded to the National Math and Science Initiative. More information about the Educator Leader Cadres can be found here.

In an effort to share the workload around procurement, other states will now release solicitations or procurements on behalf of PARCC.  All procurememnts will be listed here, but the actual solicitation or procurement will be posted on the releasing state’s procurement website. The state's website will provide information regarding response submission requirements. Any questions about open solicitations or procurements should be directed to the issuing state’s procurement staff, unless otherwise noted in the solicitation description.  

Vendors should register on the Florida Vendor Bid System for procurements through Florida. Additional states are procuring PARCC services and contracts. Please note the state that is handling each solicitation and visit their procurement office for details on bidding.  

The current procurement schedule can be found here and a brief description of the upcoming procurements can be found here. Procurement timelines are subject to change so please check back for updates.

More information:

• The first phase of item development contracts were awarded to ETS and Pearson.   ETS' proposal can be found here and Pearson's can be found here.

• RFP for the PARCC Item Tryout, Field Testing, Operational Form Construction, and Embedded Research: PARCC has re-released through the Indiana Department of Education an RFP for the tryout, field testing, test form construction, and research of assessment issues.  These are essential steps in the development of the high quality and innovative assessments that will be developed over the next one and half years for the PARCC assessments in English language arts and mathematics. The RFP can be viewed at http://www.in.gov/idoa/proc/bids/RFP-13-29/

• ITN to Engage Educators: PARCC released through the Florida Department of Education, PARCC's fiscal agent, the Educator Leader Cadre, Meeting Logistics and Meeting Content Services Invitation to Negotiate (ITN). The Educator Leader Cadres (ELC) are a major part of PARCC's ongoing work to engage educators in the implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the development and implementation of the PARCC assessments. The purpose of this ITN is to procure services to support a three-year effort to develop and interact with a network of K-16 educators to build expertise in the CCSS and PARCC. This will be accomplished through a combination of face-to-face meetings, on-line modules, and professional development webinars. Cadre members will discuss best practices around use and implementation of the PARCC Model Content Frameworks and PARCC item prototypes, review sample tasks and model instructional units, and identify ways of disseminating information through the network on how the PARCC resources can inform classroom practice. Also please refer to the ITN Summary and FAQs in PDF format. More...

• Item Development Invitation to Negotiate (ITN): The ITN lays the foundation for the major components of the PARCC assessment system as it will procure the development of English language arts/literacy and mathematics items, tasks and related materials for the mid-year, performance-based, and end-of-year assessments. The procurement will generate a large bank of items to support the construction of assessments for grades 3-11 which will be given in PARCC states beginning in the 2014-15 school year. All relevant information, including contact information, can be found here. Also please refer to the ITN Summary and FAQs in PDF format.

• Invitation to Negotiate (ITN):The Florida Department of Education issued an ITN for the purpose of contracting with one or more Technology Systems Architecture and Systems Implementation Services entities to assist in the development and implementation of PARCC’s next generation assessment system based on the Common Core State Standards. The technology demands of the PARCC assessment system are complex. Technology Architecture Services, Interoperability Standards Development Services, and Systems Implementation Services vendor(s), managed by PARCC’s Program Management Partner, Achieve, will add to PARCC’s capacity to deliver a robust, scalable, sustainable, and cost effective system. This solicitation does not include development of selected systems/hardware solutions. Decisions on systems/hardware that are made based on the final architecture will be procured under separated solicitations. However, the overall implementation and management of the architecture and its selected components throughout subsequent procurements is part of this solicitation. All relevant information, including contact information, can be found here.

• Request for Information (RFI) for Artificial Intelligence: The Florida Department of Education issued an RFI for the purpose of obtaining information about the technologies, products and processes that vendors are currently using or that could be used to score open / constructed response assessment items and other student work products using artificial intelligence. All relevant information, including contact information, can be found here.