If I could wear a tin foil hat for a minute: it could be plausible that CA could fight this to allow it to escalate to the Supreme Court and establish a judicial standard for these types of cases.
I don’t really understand why, of all the CA government institutions, the CDE finds this to be appropriate stance though. An educational office should absolutely be held to a much higher standard than this, and should at its core value openness of information and freedom of speech. The fact that this lawsuit exists at all is an indication of deeply problematic internal values within CDE that are completely misaligned with its mission and governmental function.
Observers say the dispute has the potential to limit who conducts education research in California and what they are able to study because CDE controls the sharing of data that is not available to the public.
All data in Florida from public institutions are public. There would never have been controversy in the first place. But yeah, you're right - the Sunshine laws have nothing to do with testimony.
