The teachers unions, led by figures like Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) president Stacy Davis Gates, believe they own your children, and they’re not shy about admitting it. Their fierce resistance to school choice and their brazen claims over the minds of America’s youth reveal a chilling agenda.
They don’t just want a monopoly on education funding — they want control over the hearts and minds of nearly 50 million students. But the Supreme Court has long affirmed that parents, not unions or the state, hold the fundamental right to direct their children’s upbringing, a principle that exposes the unions’ overreach as an assault on liberty.
This week, Gates’ hubris was on full display at the City Club of Chicago, where she declared, “The children are always ours. Every single one of them. All over the globe.” She admitted her critics are right when they say her union believes it owns the children in public schools.
This moment wasn’t a gaffe — it was a confession. Last year, she led a CTU rally chant: “Whose children? Our children!” Vice President Kamala Harris, whom Gates supported in her presidential run, echoed this socialist sentiment in 2022: “When you see our kids, and I truly believe that they are our children, they are the children of our country, of our communities.”
As bestselling author Michael Malice put it, “Socialists regard your property as their property, but even more nefariously regard your children as their property.”
The irony is glaring: if the CTU were a parent, it would lose custody for educational neglect and abuse, given the catastrophic failure of Chicago’s public schools.
In 2023, data revealed that 55 Chicago Public Schools had zero students proficient in either math or reading. Zero. If a parent allowed their child to languish in such an environment, child protective services would intervene. Yet Gates has the audacity to claim these children “belong” to her union, as if their abysmal outcomes are a point of pride rather than a damning indictment.
The CTU’s fight against school choice exposes their true motives: not to educate, but to control. They work to trap other people’s children in failing government schools, not out of faith in those schools, but to maintain a monopoly on funding and, more sinisterly, on the minds of students for 13 years, seven hours a day. The more kids they keep captive, the more money they can funnel to far-left political agendas and Democratic campaign coffers.
In 2023, the CTU fought to kill the Invest in Kids Act, an Illinois scholarship program that gave thousands of low-income students access to better schools. Every child who escapes their grip threatens their power.
The Supreme Court has consistently rejected this kind of authoritarianism. In Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), the Court struck down an Oregon law that banned private education to enforce ideological conformity, declaring, “The child is not the mere creature of the State.” This landmark ruling affirmed that parents have a fundamental right to direct their children’s education and upbringing.
Similarly, Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) overturned a state law prohibiting foreign language instruction in schools, protecting parents’ rights to choose educational content that aligns with their values. In Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), the Court exempted Amish families from compulsory schooling laws, upholding their right to educate their children according to their religious beliefs. These precedents make clear that children belong to their parents, not to unions or government bureaucrats. Yet the CTU’s rhetoric and actions defy this settled law, treating students as pawns in an ideological crusade.
The hypocrisy is galling. Gates, who claims public school children “belong” to her union, sends her own son to a private Catholic school. She once called school choice “racist” — before her personal choices were exposed. This double standard is the union playbook: control your kids while opting out for their own. Meanwhile, Illinois Democrats, allied with the unions, pushed to regulate homeschooling in 2025. Their bill, which passed out of committee on a party-line vote despite over 40,000 registered opponents, aimed to curb parents’ freedom to educate their children independently. Though the bill died, the message was unmistakable: the war on parental rights continues.
Gates can wield such uncontrolled influence because the CTU is a public sector union, a structure even Franklin D. Roosevelt warned against. Unlike private sector unions, public sector unions like the CTU bargain with government entities funded by taxpayers, using taxpayer dollars — collected through mandatory dues — to lobby against the public’s interests. And if you don’t like it, your kids are held hostage without an escape hatch.
Emboldened by decades of unchecked power, unions now say the quiet part out loud. But their arrogance is backfiring — it’s free advertising for school choice and homeschooling. Parents are awakening to the reality that unions see their children as political tools, not individuals with unique needs. The Pierce, Meyer, and Yoder rulings remind us that the state — and by extension, its union surrogates — has no claim over our kids. The CTU’s claim of ownership is particularly hollow when 55 of its schools produce zero proficient students, a failure that would disqualify any parent from custody.
A school choice revolution is already underway. Over the past four years, 17 red states have embraced universal school choice policies, empowering parents to direct education funding to schools or programs that fit their children’s needs. These states understand that dollars should follow students, not prop up failing systems. The Educational Choice for Children Act, included in the Big Beautiful Bill, will supercharge this movement, expanding opportunities in blue states like Illinois, where unions and their allies have stifled families’ options.
The stakes are immense. Teachers unions aren’t just fighting for funding — they’re battling for ideological dominance. They’ve infiltrated public schools, turning them into machines for shaping the country’s future without raising children of their own. By trapping kids in unionized schools — especially those where zero students meet basic proficiency — they secure both funds and influence to push their agenda.
But parents aren’t powerless. School choice, backed by Supreme Court precedent, is the key to breaking this monopoly.
Gates’ chutzpah should rally every parent and citizen who values liberty. The unions’ claim over “our children,” coupled with their educational failures, violates the principle, enshrined in Pierce, that children are not the state’s property.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and the unions will keep targeting homeschoolers, private school families, and anyone who defies their control. It’s time to unleash school choice nationwide and free families from the depraved clutches of the teachers unions once and for all.