Stacy Davis Gates | Nam Y. Huh Nam/Associated Press
Stacy Davis Gates will bring her educational failures to Springfield.
By The Editorial Board | Wall Street Journal
Talk about failing up. Stacy Davis Gates, the Chicago Teachers Union president who has presided over the educational failures of Chicago public schools, has been elected to lead the Illinois Federation of Teachers. Here we have in a single event the problem that is ruining Illinois.
From her new perch, Ms. Davis Gates will be the voice of more than 100,000 Illinois teachers, faculty and others at the statewide union. Downstate parents wondering what’s ahead are warned: It won’t be higher test scores. Less than a third of Chicago eighth grade students are proficient in reading and math. For that, she gets a promotion.
Students and parents don’t get to vote in union elections, alas. But union teachers do and they care most about money and dodging accountability for student failure. Ms. Davis Gates has delivered on both counts. In 2024 she told a Chicago radio station that academic testing “at best is junk science rooted in white supremacy” and “you can’t test black children with an instrument that was born to prove their inferiority.”
Yes, grading is racist, so stop using tests to judge students—and heaven forbid don’t hold teachers accountable. By the way, Ms. Davis Gates sends her own son to a private school.
Read more here.
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