A New Jersey politician recently wanted U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to explain why Michigan’s Mackinac Center for Public Policy was informing public sector employees in his state about their right to stop paying fees to public sector unions.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross brought up the Mackinac Center, which publishes Michigan Capitol Confidential, at a hearing of the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee when DeVos was testifying about the Education Department.

Norcross asked DeVos why the Mackinac Center was contacting unionized public sector workers in New Jersey.

“In reality, teachers are being targeted, spammed, coerced by groups such as the Mackinac Center for Public Policy — that you probably know something about — and from the Freedom Foundation,” Norcross said, according to The Detroit News.

“If teachers are choosing to join unions — why the two foundations that your family’s associated with are the top givers to those groups that are trying to get people to leave? ... Why would you do that?”

But Norcross should know why. In 2018, he sponsored a bill in Congress to repeal states’ authority to enact right-to-work laws, which prohibit compelling workers to pay union fees as a condition of employment.

In the same month Norcross introduced his bill in Congress, the governor of New Jersey signed a state law that restricts workers who want to opt out of paying union fees. It allows them to do so only during the 10 days following the anniversary date of their hiring.

A little more than a month after Norcross’s bill was introduced in Congress and the New Jersey law was signed, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the use of this tactic against public sector employees, including teachers. The Supreme Court ruled that compelling these workers to pay union fees violates their First Amendment rights to free speech and free association.

Following the passage of Michigan’s right-to-work law, the Michigan Education Association enforced a similar restriction for several years. Its policy was to let school employees who wanted to opt out of union fee payments to do so only during the month of August, when most teachers are on summer break. The state labor commission and the Michigan Court of Appeals, however, ruled that the MEA’s opt-out window was illegal. The Michigan Supreme Court refused to hear the union’s appeal.

The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation has filed a lawsuit in New Jersey over the state’s restrictive union opt-out law, which is called the Workplace Democracy Enhancement Act.

In the ongoing debates over school funding in Michigan, the claims made by many school administrators do not stand up to scrutiny when they are investigated.

A recent example was provided by Riverview Community Schools Superintendent Russell Pickell, who said that past state funding for K-12 schools has been inadequate.

“The budget recommendations Gov. Whitmer released last month were directly based on research showing how we can better fund our schools. The Senate’s budget appears to be based only on an interest in maintaining the status quo and keeping special interest line items intact,” said Pickell on Medium.com. “In years past, educators may have looked at this budget and said ‘It could be worse,’ but status quo is no longer going to cut it. The Legislature needs to try harder than this because our students deserve better than this.”

The Riverview Community School District has fared quite well under past state budgets, however.

The district’s per-pupil funding in state-supplied dollars (not including local or federal dollars) increased from $8,234 per pupil in the 2010-11 fiscal year to $8,762 per pupil in 2018-19, even after adjusting for inflation.

That means the district is getting a real, after-inflation increase of $528 per pupil since fiscal year 2010-11, which is when former Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed her last budget.

Riverview’s teachers have also received raises. For example, one middle school American history teacher has seen his salary rise from $61,716 in 2013-14 to $74,036 in 2017-18. A middle school math teacher saw her salary go from $76,435 in 2013-14 to $80,168 in 2017-18, a 4.8% raise over the four-year period.

The average teacher salary in the district is $67,282.

Pickell didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.