Sunday, February 26, 2017

Once a Great Idea-Vouchers Fail Schools

Dismal Voucher Results Surprise Researchers as DeVos Era Begins

By Kevin Carey- New York Times

The confirmation of Betsy DeVos as secretary of education was a signal moment for the school choice movement. For the first time, the nation’s highest education official is someone fully committed to making school vouchers and other market-oriented policies the centerpiece of education reform.
But even as school choice is poised to go national, a wave of new research has emerged suggesting that private school vouchers may harm students who receive them. The results are startling — the worst in the history of the field, researchers say.
While many policy ideas have murky origins, vouchers emerged fully formed from a single, brilliant essay published in 1955 by Milton Friedman, the free-market godfather later to be awarded a Nobel Prize in Economics. Because “a stable and democratic society is impossible without widespread acceptance of some common set of values and without a minimum degree of literacy and knowledge on the part of most citizens,” Mr. Friedman wrote, the government should pay for all children to go to school.
But, he argued, that doesn’t mean the government should run all the schools. Instead, it could give parents vouchers to pay for “approved educational services” provided by private schools, with the government’s role limited to “ensuring that the schools met certain minimum standards.”
Continue reading the main story
The voucher idea sat dormant for years before taking root in a few places, most notably Milwaukee. Yet even as many of Mr. Friedman’s other ideas became Republican Party orthodoxy, most national G.O.P. leaders committed themselves to a different theory of educational improvement: standards, testing and accountability. That movement reached an apex when the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 brought a new focus on tests and standards to nearly every public school nationwide. The law left voucher supporters with crumbs: a small demonstration project in Washington, D.C.
But broad political support for No Child Left Behind proved short-lived. Teachers unions opposed the reforms from the left, while libertarians and states-rights conservatives denounced it from the right. When Republicans took control of more governor’s mansions and state legislatures in the 2000s, they expanded vouchers to an unprecedented degree. Three of the largest programs sprang up in Indiana, Louisiana and Ohio, which collectively enroll more than a third of the 178,000 voucher students nationwide.
Most of the new programs heeded Mr. Friedman’s original call for the government to enforce “minimum standards” by requiring private schools that accept vouchers to administer standardized state tests. Researchers have used this data to compare voucher students with similar children who took the same tests in public school. Many of the results were released over the last 18 months, while Donald J. Trump was advocating school choice on the campaign trail.
The first results came in late 2015. Researchers examined an Indiana voucher program that had quickly grown to serve tens of thousands of students under Mike Pence, then the state’s governor. “In mathematics,” they found, “voucher students who transfer to private schools experienced significant losses in achievement.” They also saw no improvement in reading.
The next results came a few months later, in February, when researchers published a major study of Louisiana’s voucher program. Students in the program were predominantly black and from low-income families, and they came from public schools that had received poor ratings from the state department of education, based on test scores. For private schools receiving more applicants than they could enroll, the law required that they admit students via lottery, which allowed the researchers to compare lottery winners with those who stayed in public school.
They found large negative results in both reading and math. Public elementary school students who started at the 50th percentile in math and then used a voucher to transfer to a private school dropped to the 26th percentile in a single year. Results were somewhat better in the second year, but were still well below the starting point.
This is very unusual. When people try to improve education, sometimes they succeed and sometimes they fail. The successes usually register as modest improvements, while the failures generally have no effect at all. It’s rare to see efforts to improve test scores having the opposite result. Martin West, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, calls the negative effects in Louisiana “as large as any I’ve seen in the literature” — not just compared with other voucher studies, but in the history of American education research.
There’s always the chance that a single study, no matter how well designed, is an outlier. Studies of older voucher programs in Milwaukee and elsewhere have generally produced mixed results, sometimes finding modest improvements in test scores, but only for some subjects and student groups. Until about a year ago, however, few if any studies had shown vouchers causing test scores to decline drastically.
In June, a third voucher study was released by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank and proponent of school choice. The study, which was financed by the pro-voucher Walton Family Foundation, focused on a large voucher program in Ohio. “Students who use vouchers to attend private schools have fared worse academically compared to their closely matched peers attending public schools,” the researchers found. Once again, results were worse in math.
Three consecutive reports, each studying one of the largest new state voucher programs, found that vouchers hurt student learning. Researchers and advocates began a spirited debate about what, exactly, was going on.
Mark Dynarski of the Brookings Institution noted that the performance gap between private and public school students had narrowed significantly over time. He argued that the standards, testing and accountability movement, for all its political shortcomings, was effective. The assumed superiority of private schools may no longer hold.
Some voucher supporters observed that many private schools in Louisiana chose not to accept voucher students, and those that did had recently experienced declining enrollment. Perhaps the participating schools were unusually bad and eager for revenue. But this is another way of saying that exposing young children to the vagaries of private-sector competition is inherently risky. The free market often does a terrible job of providing basic services to the poor — see, for instance, the lack of grocery stores and banks in many low-income neighborhoods. This may also hold for education.
Others have argued that standardized test scores are the wrong measure of school success. It’s true that voucher programs in Washington and some others elsewhere, which produced no improvements in test scores, increased the likelihood of students’ advancement and graduation from high school. One study of a privately financed voucher program in New York found positive results for college attendance among African-Americans.
But research has also linked higher test scores to a host of positive outcomes later in life. And voucher advocates often cite poor test scores in public schools to justify creating private school vouchers in the first place.
The new voucher studies stand in marked contrast to research findings that well-regulated charter schools in Massachusetts and elsewhere have a strong, positive impact on test scores. But while vouchers and charters are often grouped under the umbrella of “school choice,” the best charters tend to be nonprofit public schools, open to all and accountable to public authorities. The less “private” that school choice programs are, the better they seem to work.
The new evidence on vouchers does not seem to have deterred the Trump administration, which has proposed a new $20 billion voucher program. Secretary DeVos’s enthusiasm for vouchers, which have been the primary focus of her philanthropic spending and advocacy, appears to be undiminished.

Trump to Roll Out Voucher Program for ALL School Districts

When I post for CMNEA - I look for news articles that tell what is happening politically in the educational world. I normally don't post blog entries, but this one is not only well written and researched, but very timely for our state. Please take notice! By the way, the highlight in green is taken directly from NEA's belief on having great public schools for ALL students!


Price Tag for Trump Voucher Program Publicized March 13th?

February 26, 2017
When Donald Trump announced that his $20 billion “plan to provide school choice to every disadvantaged student in America” on September 08, 2016, at an Ohio charter school itself having low grades by the state’s standards, he did not offer details regarding where, exactly, the $20 billion would come from or even how he arrived at that figure.
However, according to the February, 22, 2017, Associated Press (AP), the Trump administration is planning to submit its budget plan to Congress on March 13, 2017.
The degree of detail in that plan remains to be seen, including how Trump’s voucher plan will be financed; whether the dollar amount will be $20 billion, and the number of years associated with such an amount.
As AP reports, Congress already expects Trump budget details to be sketchy:
GOP aides say the plan is due on March 14. They’re expecting Trump’s blueprint to contain fewer details than is typical since it’s a new administration and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney was only confirmed last week.
Even so, it seems that the DC voucher program– the only federally funded voucher program– is offering a definite “yes” regarding expansion of the program, as Washington Post reporter Emma Brown reports on February 24, 2017:
Kevin Mills, manager of family and community affairs for Serving Our Children, said in a telephone interview that the organization is expecting to expand because of new federal resources. He declined to say how much additional money the organization is expecting to receive, saying that they won’t have a firm number for another week or two.
Meanwhile, US ed sec Betsy DeVos has made it clear that she plans to continue to pitch voucher superiority as she continued campaigning for vouchers in her February 23, 2017, speech at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) convention using the worn-out reformer call to defy both “zip code” and “status quo.” An excerpt:
Let me ask you: Do you believe parents should be able to choose the best school for their child regardless of their ZIP code or family income?
(YES!) Me too. And so does President Trump.
We have a unique window of opportunity to make school choice a reality for millions of families. Both the President and I believe that providing an equal opportunity for a quality education is an imperative that all students deserve. …
As Secretary, I don’t think the Department of Education in Washington should have more power over your decisions than you do. I took this job because I want to return power in education back to where it belongs: with parents, communities, and states.
We can do this, but only with your help.
Defenders of the status quo will stop at nothing to protect their special interests and their gig. So we need you to engage, to be loud and to never stop fighting for what we believe. We need you to call, write, email, Tweet and Snap every politician who thinks the status quo is ok and that they know better than you when it comes to your education.
DeVos wants those who agree with her to be vocal. However, she is selling her own status quo, an ideology that touts choice as best because it just is, despite the fact that the very day DeVos gave the above speech, the New York Times carried a powerful piece entitled, “Dismal Voucher Results Surprise Researchers as DeVos Era Begins.”
Researcher Kevin Carey highlights how voucher programs in three states– Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio– have indeed produced profoundly poor results.
In short, based on research of voucher programs in these three states, the public schools fared much better.
What this means in the world of Trump-DeVos education is that the voucher is being pushed regardless of the evidence that state-level voucher programs are faring embarrassingly poorly.
School voucher superiority is an ideology that Trump says he will finance and DeVos is devoted to proliferating.
By mid-March, America might know just how much the Trump-DeVos voucher non-solution will cost, at least in the short term.
The long-term costs for the thousands of students subjected to dismal “choice” remains to be seen.
trump-devos Donald Trump & Betsy DeVos
__________________________________________________________

Want to read more about the history of charter schools and vouchers?

School Choice: The End of Public Education? 

school choice cover  (Click image to enlarge)

Schneider is a southern Louisiana native, career teacher, trained researcher, and author of two other books: A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who In the Implosion of American Public Education and Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools?.

both books

Friday, February 24, 2017

Paycheck Deception Marches On

Missouri House advances ‘paycheck deception’ measure

FEBRUARY 20, 2017 by ADMIN in LABOR NEWS FROM OUR REGION
By TIM ROWDEN From the Labor Tribune
Editor
Republican lawmakers in Missouri unleashed their second, third and fourth wave of attacks on Missouri’s workers in recent days. Even as the ink was drying on Gov. Eric Greitens’ signature on Senate Bill 19:
  • The Republicans first attack wave, was making Missouri the 28th “right-to-work” state.
  • Second attack wave: The Missouri House advanced a paycheck deception measure Feb. 9, sending House Bill 251 (HB 251) to the Senate.
  • Third attack wave: The Senate gave first round approval of Senate Bill 182 (SB 182) that prohibits Project Labor Agreements (PLAs). That bill was set on the Senate calendar for a third reading late Monday, Feb.13 after Labor Tribune press time.
  • Fourth attack wave: Several measures targeting prevailing wage were also being considered in the House and Senate.
PAYCHECK DECEPTION
HB 251, sponsored by Representative Jered Taylor (R-Nixa) would require public employees to opt in each year for dues to be taken out of their paychecks by unions. It also specifies that information on how such deductions are used must be available to employees.
The House bill would impact public employees such as nurses, teachers, social workers, municipal workers, snowplow drivers and anyone working for state and local governments. Unlike last year’s legislation, it would also include police, firefighters and first responders, groups Governor Greitens claims to support.
Representative Doug Beck (D-Affton), a member of Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 562, said the bill is another attempt to take away the voice of middle class workers.
“Workers already have this freedom, to join or not join a union,” Beck said during House debate on the measure. “They can do it any time during the year. We heard plenty of testimony on this. They make it real easy on public employees whether they want to join or not join; whether they want to give money to political cause or whether they don’t want to give money to political cause. I don’t understand why we care about what people do with their money after they earn it. It’s their money. They can do what they want with it.”
The paycheck deception measure was sent to the Senate on a 95-60 vote.
The Missouri Legislature passed a similar bill last year but it was vetoed by then Gov. Jay Nixon.
‘UNIONS DON’T WANT THIS’
“Unions don’t’ want this bill, but the majority party wants to impose their will on their paychecks,” said Representative Michael Butler (D-St. Louis). “This bill tells teachers, nurses, firefighters and police that the Missouri Legislature knows better and we’re going to make decisions for them.”
Representative Bob Burns (D-Affton), a retired member of Teamsters Local 600, called the bill an attack on working people, funded by union-hater David Humphreys, president and CEO of Joplin-based TAMKO Building Products Inc., who with his family spent more than $14 million during the campaign cycle supporting candidates who supported “right-to-work” and other anti-union measures.
“There’s no rhyme or reason other than weakening Labor,” Burns said. “They have produced no evidence of any union members coming to them or testifying in our committee meetings or anywhere else that they want these egregious anti-Labor laws. The people who are bringing these bills have no experience in Organized Labor, they just wrongly believe that unions are ‘bad’ and they want to get rid of them. We’ve been fighting with all our hearts, but on the other side it falls on deaf ears.”
MORE OF THE SAME
Mike Louis, president of the Missouri AFL-CIO, said the paycheck deception measure is part of the same anti-worker agenda driving much of the legislation this session.
“It’s just more of the same where they’re preaching less government, yet their reaching into the personal lives of public sector workers, treating them like little kids, like they’re not even capable of making their own decisions about what they want deducted from their paychecks and where they want that money to go to,” Louis said.
“They’re trying to do away with Organized Labor and do it on the backs of workers.”

Sunday, February 19, 2017

CPS Superintendent and Chief Financial Officer Speak Out Against HB 634

CPS leaders urge opposition to charter school expansion

Officials say proposed bill would hurt district

By Roger McKinney  Columbia Daily Tribune

Two top officials with Columbia Public Schools have sent a letter to Columbia-area legislators and members of the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee outlining the potential cost of expanding charter schools throughout the state.
Current state law allows charter schools only in St. Louis and Kansas City. Charter schools are public schools but are operated independently of local school boards and can be sponsored by universities, school districts, community colleges, vocational-technical schools or the Missouri Charter Public School Commission.
According to the Feb.6 letter from CPS Superintendent Peter Stiepleman and Chief Financial Officer Linda Quinley under the proposed legislation — HB 634 — CPS would lose $8,423 in state and local funding for every student that attends a charter school within the district. If 100 of the district's 17,529 students were to enroll in a charter school, the cost to the district would be $842,300.
The letter specifies the CPS tax levy is determined by Columbia residents, who also elect members to the school board to provide oversight of the taxpayer funds.
"Sending those funds to charter schools without approval or oversight of locally elected officials is problematic," the letter reads.
Kathy Steinhoff, president of the Columbia Missouri National Education Association, said the teacher's union opposes expansion of charter schools until all are required to meet the standards of accountability and transparency that apply at traditional public schools.
State Rep. Chuck Basye, R- Rocheport, said he's read the letter from Stiepleman and Quinley, but he's inclined to vote in favor of the bill. He said he's getting a lot of emails and letters opposed to the bill that are filled with incorrect information.
"In the two existing areas of the state where they operate, a lot of these charter schools are doing well in high-poverty areas," Basye said. "I think it's another tool in the toolbox to help our children."
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has highlighted five high-performing charter schools on its website, but several other charter schools are low-performing.
Douglas Thaman, executive director of the Missouri Charter Public School Association, said his organization provided advice to the bill's author, and charter schools provide another option for parents.
Thaman said under the bill, the public money would go with the child, and if a school district is performing well, it shouldn't worry about students leaving for charter schools.
"Nobody forces a family to place a child in a charter school," Thaman said.
Sarah Potter, spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said Missouri law requires charter schools to accept all students in the district in which it operates, with no limits based on race, income level, disability or other measures, but they may limit admission to students within a given age group or grade level.
"Charter schools are allowed to establish the capacity of their schools and create waiting lists ... but they are not allowed to limit admission based on other factors," Potter said in an email.
Columbia Board of Education member Jan Mees said she opposes the bill, primarily because charter schools aren't held to the same level of accountability as public schools. The bill would require charter schools to meet state academic performance standards and allows the schools to employ teachers who don't have a teaching certificate.
State Rep. Kip Kendrick, D-Columbia, said he opposes the bill, adding many charter schools don't perform well in Kansas City and St. Louis.
"We're under-funding education tremendously in the state," Kendrick said. "We can't fund K-12 schools adequately. They're relying more and more on local funds. To expand charter schools just seems unacceptable."
State Rep. Martha Stevens, D-Columbia, also opposes the bill and said it's important to make sure public funds are invested in public schools.
Both Stevens and Kendrick said though Democrats are outnumbered by Republicans, many rural Republicans also might reject charter school expansion because of the large economic impact of schools in their districts.
State Sen. Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia, said he hadn't read the bill or the letter from the CPS officials, and has not decided how he will vote.

Gov. Greitens Brings a New Style of Accessibility

Greitens complains of lack of coverage, but won't talk with reporters


  • JEFFERSON CITY • In his latest mission as Missouri’s governor, former Navy SEAL Eric Greitens is employing tactics taught in the military.
    When it comes to interacting with the press, the political newcomer has been a disciplined operator, carefully picking his targets and keeping his distance from unanticipated questions that may impede his objective.
    His stealthy approach is not uncommon behavior in this age of social media, when politicians routinely turn to Facebook and Twitter to spread their message directly to voters.
    But now, after offering minimal opportunities for the press to ask him questions in his first six weeks in charge, the Republican chief executive is beginning to complain about the coverage he is receiving from the news media.
    “Nobody [in the media] is going to write a story about how Sen. [Jamilah] Nasheed and I are working together, or how Sen. [Kiki] Curls has given my administration names and recommendations for positions. Nobody is writing about the work that we’re doing with the Black Legislative Caucus to advance issues that are important to all Missourians,” Greitens said at an NAACP-sponsored event in the Capitol on Feb. 14.
    After he vented, Greitens was surrounded by reporters asking for more information. The governor left without answering questions.
    The Post-Dispatch has since made multiple requests to the administration for details on the topics he said the media had ignored. There has been no response.
    Greitens also has refused to answer a series of questions that stem from his campaign, including the identity of his biggest donors, who gave him nearly $2 million in such a way as to shield their identities from the public. When donors remain secret, the public has no way of tracking any decisions Greitens may make as governor that benefit them.
    His refusal to answer or even listen to questions has drawn widespread criticism from several veteran Capitol watchers.
    Radio reporter Phill Brooks, who has covered Missouri state government since 1970, bemoaned Greitens’ style in a recent editorial.
    “A cloak of secrecy has descended upon Missouri government to a degree I never imagined in all my decades covering the statehouse,” Brooks wrote.
    For now, Greitens’ media ground game is more akin to President Donald Trump’s than his own GOP allies in the Capitol.
    While the president railed at the media during a contentious press conference Thursday in the nation’s capital, Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard and House Speaker Todd Richardson — both of whom are, like Greitens, Republican — conducted their weekly appearances answering questions from the media under the statehouse dome, without restrictions.
    Richard said the practice was good for transparency.
    “Ever since I’ve been Speaker of the House, I thought that was a fair way to do it, to give you a chance to talk to me and I can talk to you,” said Richard, the only Missourian to serve in the top leadership spot in both the House and Senate.
    “I’ve always thought that sunshine and knowing how I feel about certain things — even if you don’t agree — is probably a better way to understand how I envision governing and leadership in the Senate,” said Richard, R-Joplin.
    Richardson said he was carrying on a longtime tradition as the leader of the House by hosting his weekly media availability.
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    “Your all’s mission of communicating what we do in this body to the general public is important,” said Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff.
    Senate Majority Floor Leader Mike Kehoe, R-Jefferson City, said talking with the press corps amplified what goes on in the Legislature.
    “Just giving everybody an opportunity to know what’s going on, I think, is a good thing,” Kehoe said.
    On Feb. 14, a day after complaining about the media during the NAACP speech, Greitens announced he would answer select questions from the public on Facebook, following the lead of fellow Republican governors such as Bruce Rauner in Illinois and Scott Walker in Wisconsin, both of whom also hold standard press conferences.
    “We’re here in Jeff City to fight for you,” Greitens wrote in advance of his chat. “That means listening to the people and answering your questions about what’s going on in your government. If you have any questions about what we’re doing to take Missouri in a new direction, I’d love to answer them.”
    Among the pre-selected questions he answered during his 15-minute session was one about being “bashed” by the media.
    When Greitens has made himself available in person, he or his office has warned that he will not answer questions that are off the topic the governor has selected.
    “Questions unrelated to this situation will not be answered at this press conference,” a recent advisory said.
    The governor also evades reporters who cross paths with him in the Capitol.
    While walking from the House chamber to his office on the second floor, a Post-Dispatch reporter asked Greitens about a recent trip to the nation’s capital.
    “I am not going to do these drive-by interviews,” he answered. “If you want to sit down, I’ll be happy to talk with you. I’m just letting you know so you save your time.”
    But numerous requests made by the newspaper for an interview dating back to his Nov. 8 election victory have been rebuffed.
    “Rest assured, I will let you know when we have budgeted time for you to meet with the Governor,” said spokesman Parker Briden, who is paid $54,000 annually. “It is not a priority at this moment.”
    In his recent editorial, Brooks points to an early January event in which Greitens spent time in the Senate chambers observing the proceedings. As the governor made his way back to his office, two reporters approached him seeking to ask questions.
    His response, again, was to suggest scheduling an interview.
    Brooks found the response puzzling.
    “What could have been a tremendously positive story about how Greitens demonstrated a more engaged approach with the Legislature became a story about how he effectively fled from reporters,” he wrote.

Sunday, February 12, 2017

U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill's Fundraising Event!

RobinWenneker
cordially invites you to the
Columbia Kick-Off Reception
with
U.S. Senator
Claire McCaskill
Saturday, March 11
10:30 AM – 12:00 PM
At the Country Club of Missouri
1300 Woodrail Avenue
Columbia, Missouri 65203


Suggested Contributions Host: $2,700
Co-Host: $1,000
Patron: $500
Friend: $200

With questions or to RSVP, please contact Erika Brees at 314-669-5955 or ebrees@clairemccaskill.com 

Or register onlinewww.actblue.com/page/CoMoKickOff

Friday, February 10, 2017

Email Senator Rowden to Oppose Charter Schools!

ACTION ALERT: CHARTER SCHOOL EXPANSION BILL

The House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee met on February 9, but postponed the vote on HB 634 (Roeber). The bill would allow charter schools to operate in any district in the state. The bill was heard last week in House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee. The sponsor distributed a HCS version at the meeting. The HCS would limit the expansion to St. Louis and Jackson County and allow charter school open enrollment in those counties.  

The Association believes the charter school law must be transformed to ensure that charter schools function as team players in a single public school system, not as individual, privately-run schools that divert public funds without accountability to or control by local communities. However, the Speaker's office is pressuring the Committee to vote to approve the bill with only expansion and without the necessary reforms. If approved by the committee, the bill could be taken up by quickly by the House.

The Association opposes expansion of charter schools until such time as the law is revised to ensure that all charter schools are required to meet the standards of accountability, transparency and respect for the rights of students, parents and staff as are applicable to traditional public schools.

ACTION NEEDED: PLEASE CALL, WRITE OR USE THE LINK BELOW TO SEND AN E-MAIL TO URGE YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVE TO OPPOSE HB 634.

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

What is Right to Work?

By Celeste Bott-St. Louis Post Dispatch
JEFFERSON CITY • The Missouri Legislature on Thursday sent a "right-to-work" proposal to Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican who campaigned on a promise to sign it. 
When he does, it'll be an early political victory for the new chief executive, who has never held political office before. 
It'll also be a culmination of a decades-long fight between the business-backed GOP and labor-friendly Democrats. Here's the battle, explained:
What does right to work mean?
“Right to work” is a shorthand for laws throughout the country that prohibit labor unions from requiring workers to pay dues as a condition of employment. Proponents say the law is necessary to end “forced unionism,” giving Missourians the “right to work” without giving up any of their earnings to a labor organization.
They also insist that the law will create jobs and make Missouri more competitive, sending a message that the Show-Me state is friendly to employers.
Even though Missouri isn’t yet a right-to-work state, membership isn’t compulsory in some unions in the state. But a collective bargaining agreement can require that the employer collect dues from nonmembers, who don’t get to vote for union officials or contracts.
Unions deemed exclusive bargaining agents are required by federal law to provide fair representation to all workers covered by a contract whether the workers pay dues or not. If they fail to do so, the worker may be able to get relief in court or with the National Labor Relations Board.
Unions and Democrats argue that a right-to-work law would allow all workers to be “free riders,” reaping the benefits bargained for them, such as higher wages or better health care benefits, without paying for it.
And without unions financially able to go to bat for them, they contend, Missouri’s working class will see lower wages and fewer benefits.
So who’s right? Does the law actually create jobs?
That’s not clear. Some studies point to positive effects on states’ economies and wages. Others find little to no impact.
Economists attribute that uncertainty to a wide-ranging number of factors that influence job growth — it’s difficult to say whether one policy is responsible for strengthening a state’s economy.
The Missouri Chamber of Commerce points to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis showing that jobs in right-to-work states grew by 8.6 percent in the last decade, compared with 5 percent growth in states without right-to-work laws.
“Looking across the country, Missouri’s lack of right-to-work protection has put us at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to attracting jobs to our state,” said Dan Mehan, the chamber’s president.
Other experts don’t dispute the job growth, but point out that many states have seen robust job growth as they rebound from the Great Recession, so right-to-work laws passed in that time frame aren’t the only factor to consider.
“Right to work doesn’t seem to have much of an impact one way or another, both in improving the state’s business climate or in terms of devastating the health of organized labor,” said Jake Rosenfeld, a sociology professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
The expansion of right-to-work laws reflects a continuing decline in union strength, Rosenfeld said.
In 2016, about 262,000 Missouri workers, or about 9.7 percent of the total workforce, were members of unions, according to data released Thursday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Though that’s the highest percentage since 2011, the overall trend has been lower. In 2006, about 284,000 Missouri workers, or about 10.9 percent of the workforce, were union members.
“The only reason these laws get passed is because unions already decreased dramatically, in terms of what they can get done,” Rosenfeld said.
How did this all start?
The door for right-to-work opened when a Republican-led Congress passed the federal Taft-Harley Act in 1947, which deemed “closed shops,” or businesses that required all employees to be part of the union, illegal. From there, individual states could pass laws prohibiting unionized businesses from collecting dues from employees who weren’t union members.
More than 35 percent of workers were in a union in the 1950s, but the fast-growing movement didn’t hold its own against mobilized businesses and right-wing organizations that lobbied state legislatures for union restrictions, making right-to-work a heated political issue.
The right-to-work debate was renewed when Indiana passed legislation in 2012. Michigan, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Kentucky have all followed suit.
Missouri would be the 28th right-to-work state. Its shift would mark the first time in U.S. history that more than half of the nation’s workforce lived in states with right-to-work laws.
What politics are at play here in Missouri?
Typically, Republicans — backed by business organizations such as the Missouri Chamber of Commerce — have been the primary supporters of right to work, with limited exceptions.
Unions far more frequently back Democrats, who generally say that by curbing labor’s ability to collect dues, the GOP is in effect limiting the power and influence of labor unions, which often supply millions in donations and volunteers to Democrats’ political campaigns.
They also point to megadonors such as Joplin business magnate David Humphreys who can pour millions into candidates who support right-to-work legislation under Missouri’s lax campaign finance laws.
“Any appeal to rational thought, evidence or policy implications stands small against the millions in dark money that have bought this issue passage,” said Senate Minority Leader Gina Walsh, D-Bellefontaine Neighbors, during debate over the Senate’s bill.
I’m in a union. Will anything change for me?
That depends on what type of union you’re in. If dues in your union are already voluntary, this legislation won’t affect you.
If you’re under a “union shop” or “agency shop” and you have to pay dues or fees to a union, in time, you will no longer have to.
The right-to-work law passed by lawmakers contains what's known as a “grandfather clause.” It leaves unchanged any labor contracts negotiated before the bill takes effect, letting them expire on their own.
So even when the bill takes effect in August, your current contract will also remain in effect. When it expires, you’ll no longer have to pay if you don’t want to be a union member.
In St. Louis specifically, agency shop contracts cover workers at Ameren, Boeing, Laclede Gas, as well as phone companies and major grocery chains.
So what are the next steps?
As with any bill, Greitens has several options. He could sign it into law. He could veto it, returning it to the General Assembly where a two-thirds vote of both houses would be needed to override the veto. Or he could decline to sign it, letting it take effect without his signature in 15 days. 
But Greitens signing the bill, and quickly, is all but guaranteed. Right to work was at the top of the agenda for both GOP leaders and the newly minted governor this year. Republicans have tried to pass similar legislation in years past, but found a roadblock in former Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat.
Is anyone exempt?
The bills don’t apply to federal workers, workers on military bases and workers under the National Railway Labor Act, such as airline and railroad workers.
Will voters have a say?
According to Republican lawmakers, they already have. Right to work was a major talking point in the 2016 election cycle, particularly in race for governor. Greitens’ Democratic opponent, former Attorney General Chris Koster, spoke out against the legislation.
So Republicans argue that by electing Greitens and other GOP candidates on board with the legislation, voters have spoken.
Opponents to the bill point to a right-to-work ballot measure that was overwhelmingly rejected by Missouri voters in 1978, when the Missouri Capitol was controlled by labor-friendly Democrats.
Attempts to attach a referendum to the bills currently being considered — which would put the issue before voters a second time — have failed.
But union backers are pushing separate ballot initiatives in 2018 that would give voters the chance to in effect reverse any right-to-work law passed this year. Lawsuits have already been filed to block those initiatives.