Seeking Providers of Academic Language Interventions to Participate in a National Impact Evaluation

August 2016

MDRC invites developers of academic language interventions to submit proposals to implement their program in multiple school districts across the country as part of a large-scale randomized controlled trial evaluation funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) in the U.S. Department of Education. This evaluation will provide rigorous evidence on the effectiveness of selected academic language interventions for English learners (ELs) and disadvantaged non-EL students in grades 4 and 5. The evaluation will be conducted by MDRC, with its partners Abt Associates and the Florida Center for Reading Research at Florida State University (the study team).

Proposals will be evaluated on the basis of the quality of the proposed academic language intervention, training, and ongoing support; prior evidence of efficacy and/or effectiveness; quality of the plan for managing the scope of work and staff experience providing academic language intervention professional development; and organizational capacity to provide professional development to teachers across multiple school districts. Offerors must have the capacity to provide professional development and implementation support in as many as 36 schools across 12 school districts to be selected by the study team. The technical aspects of the proposals will also be evaluated in conjunction with the pricing presented by the offerors. After a review of written proposals, highly rated offerors will be invited to Washington, DC, to present their program and training plans to the study team, IES, and a panel of experts. The study team, in consultation with the expert panel and IES, will then select up to two offerors’ programs for inclusion in the evaluation through a fixed-price subcontract to MDRC.

Request for Proposals

Budgeting Template for Proposals

Offeror Questions and Responses

Important dates: