Students and parents don’t get to vote in union elections, alas. But union teachers do and they care most about money and dodging accountability for student failure. Ms. Davis Gates has delivered on both counts. In 2024 she told a Chicago radio station that academic testing “at best is junk science rooted in white supremacy” and “you can’t test black children with an instrument that was born to prove their inferiority.”
Yes, grading is racist, so stop using tests to judge students—and heaven forbid don’t hold teachers accountable. By the way, Ms. Davis Gates sends her own son to a private school.
Ms. Davis Gates recently memorialized black activist Assata Shakur, who killed a New Jersey police officer in 1973 as “a leader of freedom whose spirit continues to live in our struggle.” But after her election to run the state union, she said her goal is “to show people how to practice democracy, how to work across out differences, how to create solidarity based on our collective needs.” By solidarity she means more money for union dues.
Ms. Davis Gates led the CTU to drain its coffers to help elect Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson so she’d have a friend in City Hall. The teachers got their raises, but Chicago voters noticed. By 2023 an M3 Strategies poll found that only 29% of Chicago residents had a positive opinion of the teachers union and only 18% had a favorable opinion of Ms. Davis Gates.