Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union since 2022, over the weekend saw her responsibilities — and influence — expand considerably.
The Illinois Federation of Teachers, the CTU’s parent organization, announced Saturday that Davis Gates was elected president of the IFT. She will remain leader of the CTU while taking on the new role.
In June, we asked the question: Is the CTU’s playbook coming to a district near you, Illinoisans? With Davis Gates officially at the helm of IFT, the answer appears to be: Yes, indeed.
IFT represents teachers across the state — from Galena to Joppa — though its largest and most powerful affiliate remains the Chicago Teachers Union.
Davis Gates previously served as executive vice president of IFT, and her influence was obvious even before this news. Now, it seems the goal is to tie the CTU and IFT together even more closely than before, in philosophy and tactics.
“The fight for Chicago Public Schools just got more aligned and more unified with the fight for all school children all across our state,” the CTU said in an Oct. 18 announcement to its members.
The CTU movement has gone from about 30,000 to 100,000 strong, with members all over Illinois.
This news presents a challenge for Gov. JB Pritzker, who shared a stage with Davis Gates at the IFT convention in Rosemont on Sunday. In the same CTU announcement, the union shared that the CTU and IFT would head to Springfield on Oct. 29 to demand more funding from Pritzker and the General Assembly.
We all know how dire Chicago’s budget looks. The state of Illinois isn’t in great financial shape, either. The state has projected a $2.2 billion deficit next year. Demands for a billion more in state spending on education aren’t likely to succeed any more than they did over the past two years, as Davis Gates and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson agitated for Springfield bailouts of CPS.
Still, Davis Gates is an undeniably passionate and determined — if radical — leader, and we expect she’ll make her presence felt.
That could be a double-edged sword for teachers outside of Chicago. The reality now is Davis Gates will be the face of public-school teachers throughout Illinois, not just in Chicago. And here in the city, her act hasn’t worn well. Poll after poll show she’s unpopular, and favorable opinions of the CTU itself have fallen right along with Davis Gates’.
How many ordinary Illinoisans even knew who Davis Gates’ predecessor was as IFT president? For the record, his name is Dan Montgomery, and he’s been running the IFT for 15 years. You can bet that Davis Gates soon will be the household name Montgomery wasn’t. For better or for worse for teachers. We’ll be surprised if it’s for better, at least in the court of public opinion.
Will the CTU’s influence push more IFT districts toward contentious contract negotiations? Probably, especially given their approach to bargaining that extends far beyond the scope of pay and benefits to cover the union’s political wish list.
But the bigger concern is that these districts get swept into a movement that is overtly political and combative, not just in Chicago and in Springfield but in municipalities that previously had no clue what the IFT was or how it was linked to their local schools. The IFT was already progressive, but with Davis Gates and the CTU officially calling the shots that could well ratchet up considerably and at a much grander scale.
IFT is affiliated with more than 200 unions in school districts across the state. If you are a member at a local affiliate union, you’re automatically a member of IFT, meaning you’re sending dues to the parent union’s coffers that can be used however leadership wants.
Those dues give IFT significant political muscle, and the union has given many millions of dollars to state and local politicians over the years giving them outsize influence in the statehouse.
IFT’s parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers, is also a political powerhouse, pumping tens of millions of dollars into left-leaning politicians and causes in the past few years alone.
We can imagine that if you’re a downstate teacher whose politics don’t align, you won’t like seeing your dues financing people and ideas with which you disagree.
We anticipate there will be culture clashes, especially downstate. For example, IFT has an affiliate union in Hamilton County, where an overwhelming majority of voters supported President Donald Trump in 2024.
But in a business that’s all about education, it’s essential to remember that Davis Gates’ CTU represents teachers in a district where just 20% of third-graders read at grade level, according to state data.
That’s not surprising with union leadership focused on politicking. And it’s not a model we think should be replicated elsewhere.
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