Amendment	Solicitation No	Cont Ord No	Eff. Date	Page No 2

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We have received the following questions which we are answering in amendment 2 to RFP 97- 012. This amendment does not change the closing date.

Question: "First, On page eight of the RFP, the department requests that the contractor propose, "enough test items to create, at a minimum, the following six equated test forms". Can the contractor, in its technical proposal, propose the it is a better value to the government that fewer test forms be created for 1999 and therefore propose fewer than six test forms for this period?"

Answer - Task 2, page 8 - The bidder is encouraged to propose alternate plans, provided that the proposal meets the requirements stated in Section L.4, page 97, paragraph 3 of the RFP: "You may, at your discretion, submit alternate proposals, or proposals which deviate from the requirements; PROVIDED, that you also submit a proposal for performance of the work, as specified in the statement of work..."

Question - "Second, the RFP provides details regarding the development of field test versions of the reading and math tests for the first two years in tasks 1 through 9. It then lists task 10 through 13 (page 25 of 129) and talks only about the tests to be administrated in year 2001. However the 60 months of the contract will run through Sept 2002 during which the development and field test of the tests for the year 2003 could occur (see the following chart),

Year 1 97-98	Field Test 1999 test

Year 2 98-99	2000 test

Year 3 99-00	2001 test

Year 4 00-01	2002 test

Year 5 01-02	2003 test

It seems as if we need to develop and field test five sets of reading and math test and not the three that are indicated by the RFP. Could you please clarify this?"

Answer - Your interpretation is correct; the contractor(s) will be responsible for developing 5 sets of the NTM/NTR as you indicated and as shown in Attachment 1 to the RFP titled "Testing Cycle..."

Section C, Statement of Work is changed as follows:

The following tasks are to be added to the Statement of Work, page 25, after Task 13:

Task 14 2002 Item Development

Task 15 2002 Field Test Preparations

Task 16 2002 Field Test Operations

Task 17 2002 Final Operations

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2 RFP-97-012	of 4

Task 18 2003 Item Development

Task 19 2003 Field Test Preparations

Task 20 2003 Field Test Operations

For the above tasks, the task requirements and deliverables described for the 1999 NTR/NTM cycle are to be repeated, making technical and practical revisions and adjustments as appropriate.

Due to the changes above:

Task 14 becomes Task 21

Task 15 becomes Task 22

Section F is changed as follows to reflect the changes in the Statement of Work:

Clause F.2 Deliverables, the following are added:

Deliverables shall remain the same for the 1999 test cycle.

Task 14 2002 Item Development

Task 15 2002 Field Test Preparations

Task 16 2002 Field Test Operations

Task 17 2002 Final Operations

Task 18 2003 Item Development

Task 19 2003 Field Test Preparations

Task 20 2003 Field Test Operations

Accordingly to the numbering changes in Section C, the following are renumbered.

Task 14 becomes Task 21

Task 15 becomes Task 22

Section L:

All referenced to Task 14 and Task 15 are changed accordingly, to Task 21 and Task 22.

Question - "...at the public meeting regarding the draft statement of work for the management proposal, we talked about the issue of organizational conflict of interest as it applies to these awards. It is my understanding that there still needs to be resolution of the issue of whether or not a company that is part of a team bidding on the development contract can be part of a team bidding on the management contract."

Amendment	Solicitation No	Cont Ord No	Eff. Date	Page No 4

2 RFP-97-012	of 4

Answer - The Government will continue to take steps to neutralize and mitigate, to the extend possible, any organizational conflicts of interest in the series of contracts for the national Test initiative. Currently, the Department does not view a team bidding on the development contract (RFP 97-012) as having an organizational conflict of interest with respect to the management contract. However, any decisions on such conflicts on this and subsequent RFP's will be made on a case-by-case basis on facts known to the Department at that time. Offerors interested in RFP 97-012, Development of the NTR/NTM should propose for that RFP.

The contract closing date is not changed by reason of this amendment.