Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) president Stacy Davis-Gates sends her son to an elite private Catholic school, despite having voiced her opposition to school choice policies in the past, according to multiple reports.
Davis-Gates reportedly sends her son to the well-regarded De La Salle Institute, nestled on Chicago’s south side, according to Wirepoints. The private Catholic school costs $14,750 in tuition per year, according to their website. (RELATED: TURNER: Our Children Deserve The Best Opportunities. Let’s Start With School Choice)
The CTU president has been a longtime opponent of school choice policies. Davis-Gates helped spearhead an effort to end Illinois’ Invest In Kids Act, which gives 9,000 economically underprivileged children grants for private school tuition, Wirepoints noted. The policy is slated to sunset in January 2025 after state lawmakers declined to renew it.
“Source confirmed the president of the Chicago Teachers Union does not send her child to a Chicago Public School she sends him to a private school”
Looks like the private school is “De La Salle” pic.twitter.com/jGUvb4QTln
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) September 1, 2023
Davis-Gates previously stated her children attend Chicago Public Schools. While it appears two of her three kids attend public school, she has not disclosed one of her children attends a private Catholic school.
“I’m also a mother. My children go to the Chicago public school,” Davis-Gates said in a webinar.
“These are things that help to legitimize my space within the coalition but also helps to amplify my voice as a leader in labor because a white dude whose kids go to school in the suburbs can’t really have that same voice in the same way.”
She also implied school-choice supporters are fascist and racist.
“Yes, we are concerned about the encroachment of fascists in Chicago. We are concerned about the marginalization of public education through the eyes of those who’ve never intended for Black people to be educated. So we’re going to fight tooth and nail to make sure that type of fascism and racism does not exist on our Board of Education,” she said, according to South Side Weekly.
School choice advocate Corey DeAngelis resurfaced old tweets from the CTU president, which compared private schools to “segregation academies.”
On Twitter, Davis-Gates apparently wrote school choice was, “actually the choice of racists.” She added the policy was, “created to avoid integrating schools with Black children.”
Davis-Gates dismissed activists who called school choice the “civil rights struggle of our generation.” She also tweeted an article which argued private school vouchers had “racist origins.”
An administrator for the CTU’s private facebook group reportedly responded to the revelation Davis-Gates sends her child to a private school by lamenting her hypocrisy.
“We do dislike the hypocrisy of the CTU when they have gone after people who made the same choice,” she reportedly said in reference to other prominent Chicago politicians who have been criticized for opting to send their kids to private schools.