Wisconsin’s public school managers took a defiant tone with state lawmakers who have questions about the effort to lower the state’s standardized tests score, and who want answers about the now infamous $400,000 waterpark weekend.

The Department of Public Instruction’s legislative liaison Andrew Hoyer-Booth began a Wednesday hearing in front of the Assembly’s Committee on Government Operations, Accountability, and Transparency by telling lawmakers they wouldn’t get many answers.

“The department welcomes on-going engagement with the legislature. We want to ensure elected officials have a solid understanding of how agency operations and procedures support our mission,” Hoyer-Booth said. “Unfortunately, this committee’s desire to discuss the standard-setting and benchmarking process for the Forward Exam is a distraction from that mission. And is repetitive to numerous prior legislative hearings on the same topic.”

Lawmakers have previously asked DPI about how Wisconsin’s test scores were changed, and who was involved. They didn’t get many answers then either.

Tuesday’s hearing came after the Institute for Reforming Government filed a legal challenge to the test scores, accusing DPI of ignoring open meetings laws by holding the waterpark weekend work sessions in virtual secrecy.

DPI insisted the waterpark weekend was not required to be open because much of the work was done by a private company. Democrats on the committee embraced that argument.

“[State law] doesn’t require you to include parents, legislators, anything else, correct?” Rep. Mike Bare, D-Verona, asked of DPI.

The Republican in charge of the hearing, Rep. Amanda Nedweski, R-Pleasant Prairie, was flabbergasted by what she heard.

“You are setting very, very impactful policy on academic standards for students throughout the state,” Nedweski said. “[Yet] you have no parents present. No legislators present. No one from the public involved. Eighty-eight volunteers, who we don’t know how they were chosen, and a vendor who apparently you believe is shielded from public records requirements and public meeting requirements. Yet this affects every child in the state. You don’t think there should have been any public involvement?”

https://www.maciverinstitute.com/news/dpi-dismisses-questions-on-testing-changes-waterpark-weekend