Failure gets rewarded when it comes to government unions. Look no further than Stacy Davis Gates, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). She was just unanimously elected to lead the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT).
Her promotion comes despite a track record of presiding over educational disasters in Chicago, where student outcomes are abysmal and public trust in the union has cratered. Failing upwards exposes the rotten core of teachers unions. They focus on power, politics, and protecting adults at all costs, with no regard for kids.
Start with the facts on the ground in Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Despite spending roughly $30,000 per student annually, not a single child was proficient in math in 55 schools. Zero kids met basic standards in over 50 schools – failure factories churning out ill-equipped students while taxpayers foot the bill.
According to the Nation’s Report Card, only nine percent of black eighth graders in Chicago are proficient in math. Children are getting shortchanged by a system that prioritizes union demands over actual education.
When confronted with these dismal results during a radio interview, Davis Gates deflected by calling standardized testing “junk science rooted in white supremacy” and claiming it was “born out of eugenics.”
Under Davis Gates’s leadership, public opinion of the CTU has tanked. A poll by Echelon Insights, conducted for the Illinois Policy Institute, showed the union’s net favorability dropping 11 points – from +2 to -9 – in just eight months of her tenure. The rapid nosedive reflects Chicagoans’ growing frustration with strikes, school closures, and political overreach.
Yet instead of accountability, Davis Gates gets a statewide promotion, now representing over 100,000 educators across Illinois. Parents in conservative areas won’t even be able to escape her influence, as she’ll be calling the shots for the entire state’s union apparatus.
Failing up is baked into the union model. Teachers unions reward the ability to extract resources from taxpayers while minimizing accountability for results.
Remember, unions represent teachers, not kids. As Albert Shanker, former president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and Randi Weingarten’s predecessor, reportedly put it: “When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren.” Shanker’s words ring true today – the unions’ loyalty goes to their members and their political agendas.
The Chicago Teachers Union poured $2.4 million into Brandon Johnson’s mayoral campaign, helping elect a former CTU organizer who now boasts the highest disapproval rating of any Chicago mayor in history, with nearly 80 percent of residents disapproving.
Johnson doesn’t negotiate against the union. He’s on their side, scheming to enrich them while the city crumbles. Bargaining has turned into a rigged game where taxpayers lose every time.
Even Franklin D. Roosevelt, the father of the New Deal, recognized the dangers of public sector unions. In a 1937 letter, FDR warned that collective bargaining in government could lead to strikes and disruptions incompatible with public service. He called their obstructive tactics “unthinkable and intolerable.” Yet here we are, with unions like the CTU wielding outsized power, free from the market forces that keep private sector unions in check.
In the private sector, employees and employers have competing interests. Workers want better pay and conditions, while management aims to satisfy customers with quality products at competitive prices. If workers demand too much, the business suffers. If employers exploit workers, they lose talent to competitors. Customers can always vote with their feet.
But public schools trap families. Unions fight tooth and nail against school choice because competition threatens their monopoly, and ability to enrich themselves at kids’ expense.
The CTU’s hypocrisy is staggering. In late 2020, they posted (and quickly deleted) a claim that the push to reopen schools during COVID was “rooted in sexism, racism and misogyny.” A union that kept kids locked out of classrooms made the claim, exacerbating learning losses that hit low-income and minority students hardest.
And Davis Gates herself might be the biggest hypocrite in union history. A couple of years ago, she called school choice “racist,” yet she sends her own son to a private school.
Davis Gates has even outflanked Randi Weingarten, the AFT’s national leader infamous for pushing far-left agendas. Weingarten recently called Davis Gates to express concern over a CTU X post glorifying Assata Shakur, a convicted cop killer and former FBI Most Wanted terrorist.
The word on the street is that Davis Gates is gunning for Weingarten’s job at the AFT. I didn’t think it was possible, but she might be even worse for American education. At least Weingarten occasionally pretends to care about kids. Davis Gates doesn’t bother. She gloats about her power to advance a socialist agenda.
Take her recent speech at the City Club of Chicago, where she declared that the teachers union owns the children in the public school system. Quoting James Baldwin, she said, “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe.” Her X bio echoes this communist sentiment. Education takes a back seat to control. In her new IFT role, she’ll spread Chicago’s failures statewide, imposing her ideology on every corner of Illinois.
Parents and teachers who value real education need to fight back. Conservative and independent teachers should pull their dues from the IFT immediately. After the Supreme Court’s 2018 Janus decision, no teacher can be forced to pay union dues – that compulsion would be a First Amendment violation.
Opting out cuts off revenue to this left-wing money-laundering operation, where over 99 percent of AFT political contributions go to Democrats. And for those worried about liability insurance, the Teacher Freedom Alliance offers it for free to teachers who leave the union.
Teachers unions reward failure because their incentives are upside down. Until we introduce competition through school choice, empower parents, and break the monopoly, kids will continue to suffer. Stacy Davis Gates’s promotion exposes the teachers unions’ grift. It’s time to defund unaccountable union bosses and fund students instead.