Today’s quote comes to us from Stacy Davis Gates, who is President of the Chicago Teachers’ Union (CTU).
Heading that union is nothing to be proud of. The most recent data I can find (Spring, 2024) show that a pathetic 30.5% of CPS students in third through eighth grade meet proficiency standards in reading and 18.3% are proficient in math*. This, incredibly, is an improvement over previous years which, as ugly as those number are, were even worse.
So what does Ms. Gates have to say? Here is a quote of hers from last week, while attacking President Trump’s attempts to lessen the impact of teachers’ unions like hers:
“The children are always ours. Every single one of them, all over the globe.”
Got that? It isn’t just that these union members are sending children into the world uneducated. That’s not enough for Stacy Davis Gates. She assures parents that teachers’ unions – not the parents but the unions – have ownership of their children.
I award Stacy Davis Gates Quote Of The Day honors for giving us about as good a reason as she can for President Trump to continue working to lessen unions’ control of schoolchildren, and for wishing him every success in that effort.
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*FYI: “the definition of “proficiency” is not that students are especially good at reading or math, it is just that they meet grade-level standards, based on state-required testing. And who knows how difficult those “standards” are? Given the quality of public school education in Chicago how difficult do you think they would be? Think about it.
