Virtual Economics 4.0 Teacher Training Workshops
Request for Proposals (RFP)

The Council for Economic Education (CEE), through the generous support of State Farm®, has funding available for teacher training workshops in using Virtual Economics 4.0. Virtual Economics 4.0 is the nation’s most comprehensive educational resource for teachers of economics and personal finance. It includes 51 key economic concepts, a glossary with 500-plus terms and definitions, and over 1,200 activity-based lessons, each accompanied by a multi-media demonstration and aligned to national and state standards in economics and personal finance. This training is intended to help educators increase student understanding of economic, personal finance, and entrepreneurship concepts.

CEE joins State Farm in supporting the America’s Promise Alliance with its Grad Nation campaign goal to end the high school dropout crisis and prepare young people for college and the 21st century workforce. CEE will therefore award grants to Councils and Centers that provide a robust strategy for delivering training workshops to K-12 educators who teach in the “Target Districts” identified in a recent Grad Nation report on graduation outcomes. Applicants can explore Target Districts in their state or region by accessing the PDF file available for download here.

Application Process

• Interested applicants should submit a proposal for delivering Virtual Economics 4.0 workshops, including strategies for reaching Target Districts, using the online application.
• Applicants must also fully prepare and upload to the online application a proposed budget, which outlines anticipated costs for each workshop.

Important Dates and Deadlines

• All proposals must be submitted to CEE by April 4, 2012.
• CEE will evaluate the proposed plans, allocate funds from the available pool, and issue letters of agreement to grant recipients by April 18, 2012.
• All workshops must be conducted by December 31, 2012.
• Grant recipients must submit a summary report form evaluating the training workshop(s) by January 15, 2013.

Grant Parameters

• Workshops must prioritize Target Districts. While workshops need not be exclusively for educators in Target Districts, strong preference will be given to those applicants with a clear strategy for recruiting educators from these districts to attend training workshops.

Each workshop participant funded will receive one free copy of the Virtual Economics 4.0 CD or flash drive. Applicants do not need to include the cost of Virtual Economics 4.0 in their proposed budget.

Application Instructions

• PLEASE NOTE: This application must be completed in one sitting. (In other words, you cannot save and return to the application at a later date.) If you would like to save your work, you can create a draft by copying and pasting the form’s content into a Word document.