Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union and executive vice president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, oversees a school system that is failing its students.
A recent Illinois State Board of Education report card is dreadful.
In 30 schools in Illinois, not a single student can read at grade level, 22 of which are in the City of Chicago.
In 53 schools, not a single student can do math at grade level, 33 of which are in Chicago.
It’s no wonder Davis Gates sends one of her children to a private Catholic high school in Chicago.
Students in the city are also performing poorly on standardized tests.
The reason, according to Davis Gates, is not because the teachers she represents are failing students, but because standardized tests are “junk science rooted in White supremacy” as well as “eugenics.”
Davis Gates sat down with WVON to push for the $50 billion the union is asking for, which includes a 9% wage hike, fully paid abortions for its members, new migrant services and facilities, and a myriad of LGBT-related requirements.
During the interview, Davis Gates was asked about advocating for billions of dollars for teachers while students are failing.
Rather than addressing the concerns, she shifted the topic and suggested that the real problem is not the public education system failing children, but that students are assessed through ‘racist’ standardized testing.
Host Atiba Buchanan asked, “I’d like for you to have an opportunity to address some of the critics of the negotiating, and some of the critics, frankly, of CTU. When you hear individuals cite the reading levels and the math levels of the students and their visceral, reflexive response is to say, ‘How is more money going to fix that don’t they have enough money? Look at what these students are achieving now.’”
“Because we do have so many students not reading at grade level, so many students not at math level. What do you say to that constituency that feels like CTU is already well taken care of and probably gets more than they need.”
Davis Gates responded, “The way in which, you know, we think about learning and think about achievement is really and truly based on testing, which at best is junk science rooted in White supremacy.”
“Now, if you have another hour, I can get into why standardized tests are born out of the eugenics movement. And the eugenics movement is always thought to see Black people as inferior to those that are non-Black.”
“You can’t test black children with an instrument that was born to prove their inferiority. Some of this is about, releasing our people from a standard that is created for the failure.”
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