Procurement Opportunities

Athought LEA innovation will remain a key reform driver, and will be energized by the opportunities presented by RTTT projects made possible by sub-granted or supplemental funding to LEAs, DC’s RTTT plan includes six important state-level components.  These components, in addition to other smaller initiatives, provide procurement opportunities statewide. 

(1) Statewide Growth Measure.  Although DC has a significant amount of raw data on student achievement through DC-CAS scores, there is currently no system for charter LEAs to track student growth against a comparison set of students and to determine teacher contribution to such growth. While the IMPACT system has a formula for calculating student growth, as well as a system in which to house such data, there remains a need for a system that aggregates such information for charter LEAs and allows for growth calculations. DC’s efforts to achieve this goal will require OSSE to contract with a vendor that will aggregate and process data for use in evaluation purposes.

(2) Standards Materials.  Ensuring a successful transition to new standards is of critical importance for DC, which has historically maintained a strong commitment to high standards. As the District transitions to new standards, DC plans to seize the opportunity to make standards accessible and ensure that teachers, students, and parents understand the full relevance of such standards. DC will team up with its fellow Common Core states to leverage common resources and materials first to bridge the gap between old and new standards, such that teachers can best understand how to change instructional practices accordingly.  OSSE will contract with a web designer to develop and launch an interactive website that will feature the new core standards and provide a one-stop source for materials and information about the common core standards within DC’s specific educational context. This will include, for example, exemplars of student work in areas where the standard may be unclear. Documents contained on the website will also include parent-friendly explanations of standards in multiple languages.

(3) Standards Entry-Points for Differentiated Learning. An important priority for DC in the Race to the Top application and beyond is ensuring that students with diverse learning profiles and special needs are able to access rigorous content. As DC transitions to a new set of standards, it is important to all stakeholders that all students have access to these standards. In pursuit of this goal, DC has already initiated conversations with other states to develop a document that will scaffold entry-points for students of all levels into the new standards. DC also intends to enter into cross-state collaboration in order build upon preexisting experience in the creation of this entry-point guidance document. A key function of this document will be to ensure that DC teachers who serve students at all levels are able to differentiate instruction shortly after the new standards are released. This tool will also be used for LEA-level training. Additionally, DC plans to increase the functionality of SEDS, the special education data system, so that teachers can reference standards using a dropdown function when writing IEPs.

(4) Improved Online Data about Schools. DC recognizes the importance of providing accessible and easy to manipulate information about schools to parents, families and community members. OSSE will contract with a vendor to create a more user-friendly website from which users will be able to download aggregate-level spreadsheets on data that will include statistics on truancy, graduation, attendance, and AYP status. The website will add additional school-level data, such as information on Highly Qualified Teachers, SAT and NAEP scores. The website will also allow OSSE to track what types of data users are downloading, as means of informing statewide research priorities and improving OSSE’s research-ready data sets.

(5) Statewide Research: Data Sets, Online Request System. DC recognizes a need to take greater advantage of a broad level of research interest in DC’s many reform initiatives. Specifically, DC can play a more important role in the generation of information that could further catalyze reforms through research-based efforts. To this point, streamlining access for researchers is an important DC RTTT initiative. OSSE will identify and create a portfolio of research-ready data sets, including assessment, enrollment, teacher and financial data. OSSE will provide all state-level data stripped of personal identifiers in a simple, downloadable data format.  This will allow local groups and researchers to provide better analysis of educational processes more quickly and more comprehensively than with currently available data. OSSE will also develop an online research request tool that allows researchers or outside organizations to easily apply for access to the portfolio of data sets. OSSE will publish a list of research priorities for DC and encourage submission of research findings related to these priorities. OSSE will provide requested data from local instructional improvement and longitudinal data systems to ensure research is supporting the evaluation of the effectiveness of instructional materials, strategies, and approaches for educating different types of students.

(6) STEM Learning Network and Coordination Capacity Building.  As part of developing a STEM education framework, DC will partner with Battelle to develop a DC STEM Learning Network and coordinating body that will guide the state’s execution of a statewide strategy.  Once these structures are defined and detailed, OSSE will commit RTTT resources toward launching the DC STEM Learning Network.  OSSE will also commit one of its Effectiveness Managers on the RTTT implementation office to working with LEAs on their STEM plans.  Once up and running, OSSE envisions that the DC STEM Learning Network should be able to identify and cultivate additional resources from private sector partners to become self-sustaining beyond the first two years of the RTTT award.