By Mark Glennon of Wirepoints
Stacy Davis-Gates is undoubtedly Illinois’ most prominent and rabid opponent of school choice — and pretty much everybody and everything associated with it, all of which she labels racist or worse. As president of the Chicago Teachers Union, she is at the forefront of its campaign to kill Illinois’ meager Invest in Kids Act, which currently gives about 9,000 disadvantaged kids scholarships to attend private schools. “It must be ‘game over'” for the program, the CTU says.
But, as initially reported** by SubX News, she sends one of her kids to to Chicago’s De La Salle Institute, a private, Catholic high school.
Consider that in light of some of what she has said against providing needy parents with the means to attend a private school like De La Salle through school choice programs [emphasis is added]:
“I’m also a mother, my children go to the Chicago public school,” she said in a webinar. “These are things that help to legitimize my space within the coalition but also helps to amplify my voice as a leader in labor because a white dude whose kids go to school in the suburbs can’t really have that same voice in the same way.”
When asked in an interview if she had concerns about school-choice and privatization supporters running for the school board, she said, “Yes, we are concerned about the encroachment of fascists in Chicago. We are concerned about the marginalization of public education through the eyes of those who’ve never intended for Black people to be educated. So we’re going to fight tooth and nail to make sure that type of fascism and racism does not exist on our Board of Education.”
“I can’t advocate on behalf of public education and the children of this city and educators in this city without it taking root in my own household,” she told Chicago Magazine.
On Twitter, she has said things like “School choice was actually the choice of racists. It was created to avoid integrating schools with Black children.” Private schools are “Segregation Academies,” she wrote on Twitter. “Call them private schools supported by taxpayer funds – vouchers – so your northern cousins understand better,” she said. And she linked to an article titled “The Racist Origins of Private School Vouchers.”
De La Salle, where Davis-Gates sends one of her three kids, has long been a diamond in the rough of Southside high schools. But with tuition at $14,750 per year, it’s open only to those with some means, like Davis-Gates, and the few who are fortunate enough to get financial help.
School choice is about getting that help to more of the poor –- creating equality of choice with those who have means. The Invest in Kids Act does that, though for too few students thanks to its paltry funding. Davis-Gates’ opposition to it and her statements about private schools, all while constantly claiming status as the poor’s heroine, are hypocrisy at its most revolting.
In a Chicago mayoral endorsement of Brandon Johnson, she wrote she picked somebody who “values my intersections.”
Her “intersections” include two faces.
** I have reached out to CTU for confirmation that Davis-Gates has a child enrolled in a private school and will update if I get a response. Numerous entries on Twitter have also asked her to respond, but no answers as of the time I wrote this.
