Over the course of the 11 ½ hour hearing, only one person spoke in favor of the measure: Rep. Thiesfeldt himself. American Federation for Children lobbyist Scott Jensen and School Choice Wisconsin lobbyist Jim Bender spoke "for information purposes only," since neither they nor their organizations appeared to be legally registered as lobbyists in the State of Wisconsin at the time of the hearing. They both argued that private and religious schools receiving public voucher money should not have to be measured by the same standards nor face the same consequences for failing to meet those different standards as public schools.

Public schools advocate Heather DuBois Bourneane called out Jensen and Bender on their claims that voucher schools have produced “pockets of success.” “We all know what pockets of success are full of – money!” She went on, “If we’re serious about creating successful schools, lets fund them at rates that provide equitable opportunities for success for every single student in the state. Period. This is not a complex idea.”

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"You use the failures you have engineered to justify an exclusionary education system. That is as transparent as it is dishonest," said retired teacher Sheila Plotkin. “It is immoral to turn our children into cash cows for your campaign donors!”

Milwaukee Public Schools’ new Superintendent Dr. Darienne Driver worked in Philadelphia during the roll out of the charter school takeover of public schools there. Rep. Knudson noted that portions of AB1 were modeled after that “turn around” concept of closing public schools and re-opening them as private charters. He asked if she would recommend that model for Wisconsin. “The initial optics—buildings are fixed up, uniforms are there, there’s a lot of excitement around the Promise Academies and the Renaissance Schools—but then when you talk about progress and change over time, it’s still not there,” Driver replied. She recommended that the committee look critically at similar “turn around” projects in other states, “But I think to be fair you should start here with the people doing the work and that doesn’t seem to have happened.”