Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) President Stacy Davis Gates declared that children “belong” to union during a speech Monday at the City Club of Chicago, igniting backlash from school choice advocates and conservative leaders. Gates invoked writer James Baldwin, saying, “The children are always ours… CTU thinks your children are its children. Yes, we do.”
Davis Gates expanded on the statement by asserting the union’s role in nurturing, protecting, and even housing students, dismissing criticism of the union’s political ideology. “We educate them, we nurture them, we protect them… We even have them in our homes,” she stated.
The speech, delivered at one of Chicago’s most prominent civic forums, quickly drew criticism. Corey DeAngelis, senior fellow at the American Culture Project, told Fox News Digital, “If the CTU were a parent, it would lose custody for educational neglect and abuse, given the catastrophic failure of Chicago’s public schools.”
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) faces declining enrollment and ballooning costs. Enrollment has dropped by 70,000 students in the past decade, leaving the district with roughly 325,000 students. Despite the sharp decline, per-student spending is nearly $18,700, with some schools operating at more than triple that cost.
A recent ChalkBeat and ProPublica report found 47 CPS schools operating at less than one-third capacity. Frederick Douglass Academy, which enrolled only 28 students, costs the city an estimated $93,000 per student.
The CTU has previously demanded over $50 billion in contract negotiations—nearly equivalent to the state’s entire tax revenue last year. Gates has also made headlines for accusing conservatives of wanting to keep Black children from learning to read, claiming it’s “part of the oath they take to be right wing.”
