(The Center Square) – The Institute for Reforming Government has filed a lawsuit claiming that Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction violated the state’s Open Meetings Act when it failed to post agendas, keep minutes or notify the public of committee meetings at a 2024 Forward Exam standards-setting conference in the Wisconsin Dells.
DPI spent nearly $369,000 on the conference, which was run by contractor Data Recognition Corp. as part of a nearly $80 million, 10-year contract with Wisconsin to operate its testing and create the Forward Exam.
The lawsuit was filed by the Wisconsin Transparency Project on behalf of IRG.
IRG’s General Counsel and Director of its Center for Investigative Oversight Jake Curtis told The Center Square in February that he believed the 88-member standards-setting group filled with school employees and leaders fits the exact definition of an Ad Hoc Committee and that meetings of that committee should be public and not subject to the non-disclosure agreements signed by conference attendees.
IRG previously asked the Adams County District Attorney to take action with an Open Meetings Act verified complaint and it did not, leading to the lawsuit.
“DPI cannot lower academic standards in secret and simply expect parents and students to accept the outcome,” Curtis said in a statement. “Taxpayers funded this process, but DPI shut them out. The DA’s silence left us no choice but to pursue legal action — Wisconsin families deserve to know how and why decisions about their children’s education are being made behind closed doors.”
Dairyland Sentinel has asked Wisconsin’s Department of Justice to intervene on a public records request related to the conference that the outlet believes is still incomplete.
Dairyland Sentinel Publisher Brian Fraley previously told The Center Square that he believes there are minutes and recordings from the conference that should be public records that DPI has not released related to its workshop and that he plans to continue to fight for those records.
“The DPI holds a massive contract with DRC to manage the Forward Exam,” Fraley told The Center Square. “However, the Department cannot use a private vendor to shield itself from public records requests, nor can they use that vendor to prevent citizens from seeing the inner workings of public meetings that altered state education policy.”
DPI Superintendent Jill Underly did not attend an April committee meeting about the conference, but did have private meetings she attended instead that day.
DPI representatives were adamant that the work of the 88-member committee was not subject to open meetings or open records disclosure because it was setup by vendor Data Recognition Corp.
