An Evaluation Of States’ Monitoring And Improvement Practices Under The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act

The Department of Education intends to issue a 12-month extension to existing contract # ED-04-CO-0140. The current period of performance ends on September 30, 2009. The purpose of the extension is to enable members of the Westat team to assist the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) in reviewing and finalizing deliverables in the procurement’s scope of work, including a final report and a database. On September 21, 2004, The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) of the U.S. Department of Education (ED) awarded contract ED-04-CO-0140 to Westat of Rockville, Maryland to conduct a 5-year evaluation of states’ monitoring and improvement practices under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The ultimate goal of this evaluation is to provide information about states’ monitoring and improvement systems, including strengths and weaknesses of current monitoring activities as well as possible improvements in monitoring policies and procedures. In July 2005 this project was relocated from OSERS to a newly-established center in the Institute of Education Sciences (IES)—the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER). The evaluation is divided into three phases. Phase 1 consisted of a mail survey to all 50 states and the District of Columbia to gain a general understanding of their monitoring and improvement systems for Parts B and C of IDEA. Phase 2 was composed of two rounds of site visits to a systematic random sample of 20 states to gather in-depth information on the design and quality of Part B and Part C monitoring systems. The first round of site visits was conducted in 2006 and focused on state monitoring activities in 2004-05. A second round of site visits occurred in 2008 and focused on state monitoring activities in 2006-07. Phase 3 will involve detailed analysis and reporting on the design and quality of states’ monitoring and improvement systems and their compliance with Part B and Part C of IDEA, as well as development of possible improvement strategies. When the project was relocated from OSERS to NCSER, a number of organizational review policies were introduced that had not been included in the original project schedule. The 12-month extension will allow Westat to incorporate the NCSER and IES review procedures in its completion of Phase 3. This will allow the resulting report and database to be publicly released in accordance with IES policies. This notice is for informational purposes only. A request for proposal is not available. Interested parties may, however, request further information no later than December 29, 2008 by email to Contract Specialist Sharon Masciana at [email protected].