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First 5 to keep working with CSUB researchers
| Wednesday, Oct 10 2007 7:58 AM
Last Updated: Wednesday, Feb 7 2007 9:44 PM
First 5 Kern commissioners opted to keep Cal State Bakersfield researchers under contract Wednesday.
Photos:
Jack O'Connell, California state superintendent of instruction, greets a few educators during a roundtable with "education stakeholders," at Pioneer Drive Elementary school in Bakersfield during his visit Wednesday.
The commission voted 8 to 1 to hire a new group of faculty researchers who took over a now-disputed research contract in June.
Work done by the previous researchers is being reviewed.
Cal State Bakersfield hired an outside investigator to determine whether the former Applied Research Center's findings were accurate.
The Applied Research Center evaluated program effectiveness for First 5 Kern, which awards funds from state tobacco taxes, from 2001 to 2006.
The project was taken over in June by the new group, the Institute for Social and Community Research.
Approval of the three-year contract, which will cost about $1.9 million, is conditional. Commissioners can change their minds after they get results of the outside audit.
Commissioner Mary Barlow voted against awarding the institute the contract because she's worried the new researchers lack the experience to take on the project.
She's also concerned about working with a Cal State Bakersfield-based agency. "It's the same organization that we're currently concerned about the results we've had to date," she said.
Barlow favored a proposal from a competing research group at UCLA with more experience handling First 5 projects statewide.
In a report to commissioners, Tanya Boone of the Institute for Social and Community Research suggested commissioners nail down and simplify the agency's nearly 60 goals during an upcoming strategic planning session.