The Michigan Education Association has an "if not asked, we don't tell" policy on letting its members know about the law that lets them leave the union.

And the union apparently doesn't want the state to let people know about their rights, either. When asked at a Senate hearing about having a state government department inform union members, an MEA spokesman started to answer and then changed the subject.

The Senate Compliance and Accountability Committee has been looking into allegations that the MEA is not fully complying with Michigan's right-to-work law. Under Michigan's law, employees can get out of a union without still being required to pay money to the union as a condition of employment. However, getting out of the MEA has proven to be a tricky proposition for many teachers across the state.

According to the MEA, its members can only leave the union in August by informing MEA officials in writing of their intention to leave. The August window — and how MEA members are supposed to find out about it — emerged as key issues in the Senate committee's investigation.

During the Dec. 4 hearing, Doug Pratt, the MEA's director of public affairs, repeatedly told the Senate panel that the union wasn't interested in voluntarily telling its members how to get out of the MEA.

"Why would any membership organization seek to tell someone how to get out?" Pratt said when Senators questioned him about the MEA informing its members about the August window.

At one point in the questioning, Sen. Arlan Meekhof, R- West Olive, asked Pratt if the MEA would oppose having a state department inform the union's members about the August window. In response, Pratt started to give a direct answer but then hesitated.

Sen. Meekhof rephrased the question, but rather than answer it, Pratt instead seemed to return to his theme of defending the MEA's August window. 

The following is from a transcript of the exchange:

Sen. Meekhof: Would you be opposed to any other department in the state of informing members [of] that opportunity?

Pratt: I don't know if that is a responsibility that rests outside our organization.

Sen. Meekhof: Would you be opposed if someone from LARA (Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs) or another department give them that information?

Pratt: I believe the way PA 349 is written and the way it's been construed and talked about over the last year, is it is no longer a condition of employment to belong to a union or pay fees. That's different than an organizational contract — an agreement between two individuals — and I believe that is the reason the law states it is in the purview of [a] labor organization to set its own rules about membership.

Pratt: So in that sense . . .  I'll get to the contract later.

With that response, Pratt never answered Sen. Meekhof's direct question.

MEA spokesperson Nancy Knight did not respond to a request for comment to clarify the union's position.

In his newspaper blog, Battle Creek Enquirer reporter Justin Hinkley stated that because school choice doesn't provide transportation, low-income families often are unable to access choice while wealthier families take advantage and leave their home districts. 

"That's turned some schools into ghettos of poverty," Hinkley wrote.

However, a 2013 study on Michigan charter public schools done by Stanford University, and a recently released study by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy proves Hinkley's claim is wrong.

The Stanford University study found that charter public schools had significantly more "economically disadvantaged" students than traditional public schools.

Dev Davis, research manager at CREDO at Stanford University, said they found that 70 percent of the charter students were economically disadvantaged, meaning they were eligible for free or reduced price meals. She said 55 percent of the traditional public school students were economically disadvantaged.

Also, the Stanford study found that black and Hispanic students did "significantly" better in reading and math when in charter schools than their peers in conventional public schools.

Audrey Spalding, education policy director at the Mackinac Center and author of the study, "The Public School Market in Michigan: An Analysis of Schools of Choice," found that Michigan students were moving to districts with a lower proportion of students eligible for free or reduced price lunch. The state's "schools of choice" program is making districts more economically diverse, not less, she said.  

Hinkley, who did not respond to a request for comment, is not the first to claim that choice benefits more affluent students.

Seventy-one Michigan public school superintendents signed a letter in December 2012 that claimed charter schools were serving middle-class students even though data from the Michigan Department of Education doesn't back that claim.