OAN’s Abril Elfi
3:23 PM – Friday, September 8, 2023
The president of the Chicago Teacher Union (CTU), Stacy Davis Gates, has been under heat after it was revealed one of her children goes to private school but she has openly opposed school choice.
Reportedly, Davis Gates, who was elected president of the Chicago Teachers Union in 2022 and also serves as executive vice president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, enrolled her adolescent son in a Catholic high school in Chicago after openly speaking against private education.
The union president sent a letter to union educators throughout Chicago on Thursday after the backlash started saying “options for Black students, their families and entire Black communities on this city’s South and West Sides are limited.”
“While our fights and continued advocacy have secured more school resources, the inequities remain alarming,” she continued. “Not only are our classrooms the victims of compounded racism and redlining from decades past, but they are also struggling to recover from waves of school closings and disinvestment under previous mayors. Public and charter high schools in our Black and Brown neighborhoods are living and breathing examples of inequality. Nearly all lack the thriving extracurricular activities, sports programs, wraparound services or other ingredients that make for a high-quality neighborhood public school.”
Davis Gates, whose two youngest children attend public schools, said that her family’s decision was influenced in part by her son’s desire to play soccer, which is not available at a high level at any public school near their home.
The activist stated last year that having her children attend public schools helps to “legitimize” her position within the union and that she could not campaign for public schools if this were not the case.
Davis Gates wrote in a post to X, the social media formerly known as Twitter, that school choice was “actually the choice of racists. It was created to avoid integrating schools with Black children.”
In another X post, she said private schools are “segregation academies supported by taxpayer funds.”
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