If you're a teacher's union leader who is relentlessly pro-public school but who sends your kid to a private school, how do you defend your decision to do so?
Like this: Just go full steam ahead, no hesitation, no apologies.
A teachers union boss on CNN Tuesday defended sending her son to private school after being accused of hypocrisy.
CNN Primetime host Abby Phillip interviewed Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) President Stacy Davis Gates to address the widespread criticism she's received for sending her son to a private school for its sports program.
It's a fair question: If you're vociferously in favor of public schooling, yet you squirrel your kid off to a private option ("for its sports program"), people are gonna wanna know:
Hold onto your hats, folks, because her answer is a doozy:
Phillip said, "You've likened in the past private schools of today to quote ‘segregation academies' of the Jim Crow South. Why then send your child to a private school after speaking out so publicly against them?"
"I didn't speak out against private schools. I spoke out against school choice. School choice and private schools are two different entities," Davis Gates replied.
All of us reading that like:
I'm just trying to figure out what the substantive difference here is between "school choice" and "being able to choose private school for your kids." Could someone help me out here? Anyone?
Davis Gates was certainly no help. She ended up rambling about Massive resistance in the South (a strategy to stop desegregation), "white families," grocery stores, and, incredibly, "frosted flakes and Cheerios," as part of some incomprehensible point she was making.
(Here's the full interview if you want it)
I think she was trying to indirectly say something along the lines of: "I'm going to send my kid wherever I want while denying Chicago families the right to educational choice, please stop asking me about it." But it was hard to tell.
Asked by the host whether or not she regrets her earlier rhetoric about school choice, after apparently deciding that school choice is perfectly okay, Davis Gates scoffed:
What I've said are facts.
You've certainly revealed plenty of "facts" to us with this little diatribe, ma'am! We appreciate it!
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