The last two Chicago mayors took some news media heat for
not sending their kids to public schools, as did Chicagoan Barack Obama when he
pushed for education reforms. So, this particular issue is obviously not out of
bounds in that city and nobody in public life there should expect otherwise.
Chicago Teachers Union president Stacy Davis Gates has in
the past pointed with pride to the fact that all three of her kids attended
public schools. While others often chafed at reporters’ questions about their
children, Davis Gates did just the opposite, centering her children as part of
who she is as a progressive activist.
“I’m also a mother,” President Davis Gates said on March
6, 2022, according to NBC 5 Chicago. “My children go to Chicago Public Schools.
These are the things that legitimize my space within the coalition.”
“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 a month later.
Davis Gates has also been a fiery and longtime opponent
of “school choice.” Last August, after a retired Chicago firefighter posted on
social media: “School choice is the civil rights struggle of our generation.
Keeping poor children of color trapped in failing public schools is inherently
racist,” Davis Gates fired back: “School choice was actually the choice of
racists. It was created to avoid integrating schools with Black children.”
And then it came out last week that Davis Gates was
sending one of her kids to a private Catholic school.
She had to have known this would blow up in the news
media. The CTU has held protests outside of elected officials’ private residences,
so Davis Gates couldn’t possibly expect a privacy pass. And you don’t just walk
in a day before school starts and register your kid for a private high school,
so she had plenty of time to contemplate her response.
If Davis Gates had simply defended her family’s decision
by saying something like her son really had his heart set on going to that
school, then I don’t think anyone could really disagree with her choice.
Instead, the union president initially stonewalled when
faced with questions and then offered up an explanation to a local public radio
station which threw the South and West sides under the bus and, more
importantly, just weren’t true.
President Davis Gates said basically three things last
week to a WBEZ reporter: 1) Course offerings for high schools on the South Side
and West Side “are very marginal and limited”; 2) Selective enrollment and
magnet public high schools were just too far away and would’ve forced her son
to, according to the article, “spend hours traveling”; 3) A public high school
with a good soccer program (a sport played by her son) and strong
extracurriculars are just not available close by, or are in Latino neighborhoods
that were too far away.
Look, there’s no doubt whatsoever that problems exist in
public schools on the South and West sides. But that doesn’t mean the areas are
completely bereft, no matter what Internet trolls scream online.
Just as a small sampling, Davis Gates lives only three
miles from Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep, a high-quality selective enrollment
high school which has a soccer team and extracurricular activities.
Lindblom Math and Science Academy in the West Englewood
neighborhood has a pretty darned good soccer team and is six miles from the
union president’s home.
The Catholic school her son is attending, on the other
hand, is almost nine miles from Davis Gates’ home.
Not to mention the area’s charter schools, which are
taxpayer-funded and privately operated.
Davis Gates’ public explanation just doesn’t hold up to
scrutiny.
An argument is currently being made that Davis Gates
should now switch positions and support extending the life of the Invest in
Kids Act, a 75% state income tax credit for donations to private school
organizations which expires at the end of the year.
That’s never gonna happen, even though the private school
her son attends does promote and apparently benefits from Invest in Kids. The
CTU’s position is that the program takes tax revenues away from public schools,
which the union has always claimed are underfunded and in bad shape.
The lesson here is that life is full of nuance and is
only very rarely about evil vs. good. More people should keep this in mind,
because you just never know what life might bring you.