III. The Request For Proposal Model

To bring aboard six to eight new sites for the 1994-95 school year, CKP used a process that asked prospective schools to submit proposals on how they would use the Internet in their educational program. The Request for Proposal (RFP) process invited teams from each school in the district to develop a curriculum project that used network resources, and to submit this project to a review committee. The entire RFP is included in this document in the appendix and can also be obtained (along with a description of the entire process) on the Internet at the CKP Gopher.

A review of the process and the key issues will help define the prerequisites necessary to address the existing culture of school districts, especially pertaining to the use of technology.

• The CKP education staff brainstorms, creates and develops an RFP process for expansion. It is important to note that the CKP education staff consists of three classroom teachers: Priscilla Franklin who spent many years training elementary teachers on the use of Logo, Mario Zinga who used technology consistently in his classroom and was a co-author of the CKP grant proposal and Richard Wertheimer who was a high school mathematics teacher/supervisor for the school district and developed numerous programs for implementing technology into curriculum. These curriculum developers were consciously aware of the difficulties of implementing technology and wanted to develop a model that addressed ownership, accountability, and change. The hope was that the Request for Proposal process would provide the vehicle for developing ownership and motivation in implementing technology.
• Once the RFP guidelines were written, the CKP education staff obtained approval from the district's four Supervisory Principals and Assistant Superintendent to announce it. During the discussion that ensued, these policy makers raised concern over issues of equity and fairness. However, they came to agreement that since there were to be only 6-8 sites, and since a competition was consistent with a site-based paradigm, we could proceed. This was a crucial step in the process. The school district is in the midst of a move towards site-based management. Since the supervising principals direct the individual sites, it was important to have these policy makers support the RFP in the context of decentralization.
• The four Supervisory Principals distributed the RFP guidelines to their area principals and support staff during the first week of October 1993. The RFP guidelings were also put online on the CKP gopher. This would provide the information to those in the Pittsburgh Public Schools that were already using the Internet.
• For the next two months, the CKP staff provided open houses at their Beta site for the purpose of helping potential applicants learn more about the nature of the Internet. These sessions were every Wednesday for 3 hours. Over 20 schools visited the site, learned about the resources available, acquired Internet addresses, and became involved in the process. All of the supervisory principals visited the site and many brought curriculum support personnel with them.
• On December 15 (the deadline for submission) 33 proposals were received. Of these, 31 were from schools (out of 83 district schools), one from the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers and one from a local hospital affiliated with the Pittsburgh Public Schools.
• During the month of December, the Educational Review Committee was formalized. A list of possible participants was sent as a part of the RFP guidelines. Since a competition was counter to existing organizational practice, every part of the activity was subjected to intense scrutiny. In order to address the issue of integrity, to develop support for the activity and to counter the culture of refusal common in school districts, a diverse review committee was formed. It included parent representatives, the four Supervisory Principals, representation from central staff, and the school board. It also included teachers from each of the CKP first year sites, as well as members of the CKP technical staff, the project director and members of the evaluation team. The CKP education staff was not part of the review committee. They acted as facilitators.
• On January 13, the Review Committee met for the first time and was given its task. There were twenty four people on the committee. They were broken into four panels of six people. Each group would have a facilitator from the CKP education staff. The participants were given 8 proposals to read and rate according to the point system described in the RFP guidelines. A discussion pertaining to ethics, confidentiality and the integrity of the process followed. Because the proposals would be read by seperate groups, there was a concern about inter-rater reliability. It was suggested that they consider grouping the proposals into three categories: Fund Immediately, Needs Work, Do Not Fund. The committee had one week to read the proposals.
• On January 22, the Review Committee Panels met and discussed their ratings. The group discussions began with the numerical ratings. After three hours of discussion the groups decided to put the proposals into two categories: Fund Immediately and Need Work. Of the 33 original proposals, 15 remained. It was agreed that these 15 proposals needed further review. Two representatives from each panel agreed to continue the process and narrow the proposals down to the final 6-8 sites. This sub-committee was given copies of the remaining proposals and told to read and rate them according to the same system.
• On January 28, the ten members of the smaller Review Committee met and discussed all 15 proposals. The meeting was facilitated by the education project staff. Certain sites were immediately agreed on. Others were immediately eliminated. There was no voting. A consensus had to be reached before any decision was made. Finally, seven sites were selected. The committee agreed to keep the deliberations confidential, and that nothing would be said until the sites were notified. Notification was sent out the following week.
• Letters went out to all 33 sites announcing the Review Committee's decisions (pending school board approval).

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