There’s nothing like having a rabidly progressive, bought-and-paid-for teacher’s union foot soldier as mayor of your city. Things are guaranteed to be as terrifically run, as uncontrollably chaotic, and as completely free of accountability as any school administration in the city’s district.

That’s how they jelly roll, and now that they own the seat at the head of the table, too?

Good luck with that “education” thingee Chicago parents thought they were supposed to be getting from “public schools.”

The Chicago Teachers’ Union (CTU) has long covered itself in greedy, indolent ignominy, and the latest union president is proudly upholding that tradition, as I noted last week. Not only were Indiana authorities intrigued to realize CTU head Stacy Davis Gates had maintained in state tax filings over the past 16 years that her primary residence was in South Bend instead of Chicago, she was also a tad behind on utilities bills for the Chicago residence she actually does live in.

……she seems to be adept at running her own deficit spending program at home.

Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates has let $5,579 in Chicago water, sewer and trash bills pile up. She makes over $289,000 and demands the “wealthy” pay a greater share. So why doesn’t she pay her fair share to a city in financial turmoil?

Newly uncovered records show Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates was $5,100 behind on her water, sewer and garbage services before starting a payment plan in July 2023. She almost immediately defaulted on that plan – despite making more than $289,000 a year.

She owed $5,579 to the city as of Nov. 7, 2023.

Not to rest on her laurels, the union president representing public school teachers who can’t pay her gas, trash, and water bill – and has fought against school vouchers for other parents who are in far more difficult financial straits – does have enough money to send her son to private school.

Of course, “inequities” and “smear campaign against union officials” when word leaked out about her…ahem…”difficult decision.”

Oh, blow me a racist dog whistle, you pathetic liar.

You sent him because Chicago public schools suck and your union is 90% of that problem.

…In Chicago, voters have clearly reached a breaking point. Since the last poll, it was revealed in September that CTU president Stacy Davis Gates chose to enroll her child in a private school after she called school choice racist just last year. The latest poll showed that nearly half of Chicago voters now know that Ms. Gates sends her son to a private school – and they aren’t happy.

…Making matters worse, CTU also spearheaded the effort to kill the Invest in Kids Tax Credit Scholarship program, ripping scholarships away from 9,000 low-income kids to protect their monopoly. This was a greedy (and unpopular) move, as the latest poll showed 65 percent of Chicago voters supported the program, with support over 62 percent among Republicans, Democrats, and independents.

Adding insult to injury, CTU snuffed out this program after being one of the worst actors in the nation when it came to fighting against reopening public schools during the COVID-19 era. One of their board members was caught vacationing in Puerto Rico while claiming it was too unsafe for teachers to go back to work in person. In late 2020, the union posted and later deleted a tweet claiming, “The push to reopen schools is rooted in sexism, racism and misogyny.” CTU voted to strike again in 2022 using COVID-19 as an excuse. Harmed the most were the low-income students whose chance to attend other schools CTU just extinguished.

CTU is fighting to trap low-income kids in the same union failure factories that their own president avoided for her son. The latest Illinois state assessments reveal only 17 percent of Chicago Public School students are proficient in math (and 26 percent in reading). Illinois Department of Education data showed that not a single student was proficient in math or reading in 55 Chicago Public Schools in 2022. All that failure comes at a steep price tag. Chicago Public Schools spend nearly $30,000 per student per year.

The one place left where gifted kids could shine and where academics still meant something was Chicago’s Selective High Schools. Schools where kids tested and competed for placement in one of the premier educational programs, not just in Illinois, but in the country (one of the program’s schools is actually ranked #10 in the US).

That’s all going to change next year. “Equity,” you know.

Chicago's progressive Mayor Brandon Johnson announces plans to ax Windy City's high-achieving selective-enrollment high schools to boost 'equity' despite promising not to during election campaign https://t.co/4Ji7aaZtrf pic.twitter.com/m8SRnsAWRq

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) December 14, 2023

Equity trumps those pesky promises, promises to the children.

Chicago’s progressive mayor has announced plans to axe the Windy City’s high-achieving selective-enrollment schools to boost ‘equity.’

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Board of Education has proposed shifting back toward neighborhood schools – away from the system where kids compete for selective programs.

But when he was campaigning to become Mayor, Johnson put out a statement saying that he would not get rid of Chicago’s selective-enrollment schools.

According to the Chicago Tribune, woke Johnson specifically said: ‘A Johnson administration would not end selective enrollment at CPS schools.’

…It would lay out a five-year ‘transformation’ to effectively get rid of selective schools in Chicago – which have been heralded as the gems of the city’s education system.

The Board of Education passed the resolution last night, so pretty much a done deal, and those children in the programs now – and those who were hoping for a higher quality, more challenging education in their future – are going to be facing a return to the utter failure of neighborhood schools.

Chicago’s Board of Education approved a resolution Thursday that could impact how school choice in Chicago Public Schools works, potentially creating a major impact on selective enrollment.

The potential change in policy, which could aim to eliminate the opportunity for students to test into one of CPS’ selective high schools, is part of a new, five-year “Transformational Strategic Plan” that the Board says will strengthen neighborhood schools across the city.

…According to a statement from CPS, the resolution helps to create a model that “centers” neighborhood schools by “investing in and acknowledging them as institutional anchors in our communities, and by prioritizing communities most impacted by past and ongoing racial and economic inequity and structural disinvestment.”

The statement added that the plan is a “critical step toward closing opportunity and achievement gaps.”

I think an argument could be made that it’s simply a step towards “closing opportunity” and nothing more. There won’t be any gaps in achievement, becasue they’ll be taking the achievers and placing them where there is demonstrably none to be had.

…A statement from the Chicago Teachers Union prior to Thursday’s vote called the plan a “step in the right direction,” saying that moves that support equity, and prioritizing neighborhood schools for all CPS families is “long overdue.”

50 years ago, Norman Lear wrote a scathing couple minutes of dialogue for Good Times about the Chicago Public School system. Here we are, and nothing has changed but the scope of the rot and the exponential damage it’s caused in these decades since.

…A two-and-a-half minute clip of the Lear-produced show Good Times, titled “J.J.’s grades seem to be a problem,” shows just how long the system has been pushing unprepared children up and out of Chicago’s schools.

Watch for yourself what JJ’s principal tells his parents and it’ll seem eerily familiar.

Lear, hardly a conservative social critic, heaped scorn on the obvious bigotry of low expectations 26 years before that phrase was even coined.

“Equity” has nothing to do with this other than everyone being in a state of unending deprivation, with the children who had promise, intelligence, and drive being punished for being special in a manner not acceptable to the lowest-common-denominator crowd.

This is nothing more than a hand-out to those CTU “educational professionals” invested in solidifying power, while perpetuating and ensuring a steady base maintaining their sinecures.

It’s tragic.

And it’s so blue.