Christopher Schroeder

Category: politics

  • The Rest of Us

    I wonder what Stacy Davis Gates thinks of us.

    Gates, who is president of both the Chicago Teachers Union and the Illinois Federation of Teachers, recently argued that CPS is transforming into a “sustainable community school district” of community “anchors” as a result of the recent Chicago Board of Education approved five-year equity plan and four-year union contract. These will produce “the schools our students deserve” and “true community hubs” that reflect local neighborhoods and are “responsible to students and families” within these.

    The CTU and the Board in rejecting previous privatization of education posit schools as spaces of “stability, access and care” that also address larger social problems, such as food deserts and health care gaps. Such schools both “educate young people” and “reflect and uplift entire communities” by extending support beyond classrooms and integrating local needs with learning.

    This Sustainable Community Schools approach, which according to Gates originated in Chicago, has been embraced by other cities. At its center is a concern for students and their families that supports both “personal agency” and community development.

    I’m not surprised that a teachers union president would advocate for schools as central to society. I sometimes wondered as a professor and a parent why what happened in universities where I worked and schools where my kids learned often seemed separate from what happened beyond these institutions.

    I just never assumed that public schools were the only, or even best, ways to care for Chicago students and their families. I knew that private schools do so too as do other initiatives and institutions, such as After School Matters and the Chicago Park District.

    I realized in other words that schools exist within a larger social context. In other words, education while important isn’t everything, and certainly cannot matter more than reliable roads for example or public safety, which also matter, and must be supported, by those of us who call Chicago home.

    Gates in her defense recognized this economic element in acknowledging the need for additional revenue. At the same time, she misrepresents this situation, and denies its difficulty, by describing it as a need for “a fairer tax system” as if such a perception is a citywide consensus even though it clearly is not.

    In fact, the Chicago City Council members (and Illinois legislators) seem unconvinced of the need for a corporate head tax, a property tax increase, and other self-styled “progressive” taxes proposed by the Chicago mayor, a former CPS teacher and CTU-organizer whose election was the result of the CTU support. Moreover, this failure and other challenges to this mayor’s fiscal policies, governing approach, ethical standards, and even political competence could demonstrate the danger of putting educators in charge.

    I would suggest that this this risk can also be seen in Gates herself, and the way she models a progressive hypocrisy that has been convincingly documented by Musa al-Gharbi (2024) among educators and other social elites. For example, Gates has defended her decision to send her son to a private school in what seems like a classic case of public-schools-for-thee-but-not-for-me.

    I’m perhaps as concerned in the end about the effects upon public perceptions of the CTU and unions generally. Gates might be an effective at obtaining results for union members but by overreaching in both this equity plan and union contract risks alienating those who might otherwise be sympathetic to unions.

    The only thing worse than a union, I’ve said, is no union. The better ones I believe recognize their purview and purpose, collaborate with comparable communities, and create coalitions with other constituencies to support shared goals and similar ends, which require a humility that seems scarce in the CTU and its president.

    Reasonable people can disagree on the distribution of funding across public and social services for example or the proper role of schools and education. As a result, these debates need to be ongoing, and relitigated each time budgets are prepared.

    Budgets obviously reflect values, and Chicago, and Illinois, might need to value education more. Neither however can afford to prioritize education over everything else, especially without a citywide consensus, and not just one within CTU.

    These discussions and decisions are difficult, and must be made by those whom all of us have elected, and not educators who have been elected (or bankrolled) by CTU members.

  • The Bigger Political Problem

    Each day seems to bring more alarming news about the current Trump administration.

    Recent reports offer more details about Trump’s Board of Peace proposal, which he announced last week, for conflict in Gaza. Among others are the one billion dollars permanent member fee, his permanent appointment as its leader, and the inclusion of the Russian leader who continues to attack Ukraine.

    The American people also learned last week that the DOJ is investigating the widow of Renee Good, who was killed by federal officers conducting potentially illegal detentions in a large American city. This investigation and others, such as the governor of that state and the mayor of that city, have led to the resignations of federal prosecutors there and elsewhere.

    We also learned last week that the same DOJ is investigating the Fed Board Chairman in an attempt to exert control over interest rates ahead of an upcoming election. Even this possibility according to many, such as bank CEOs, could have negative economic consequences.

    These are just several of the latest offenses committed by the current American presidential administration, and the American president who campaigned against global entanglements for example and prosecutorial politicization, which he criticized in others. Since then, his administration has made gaslighting into an art form.

    The damage to American democracy alarms many both in the United States and around the world, including some who wonder whether some might be permanent. The greater concern in my opinion is the legitimization of this president by our fellow Americans.

    These 2024 election voters aren’t the majority of Americans. Only sixty-four percent voted, and less than fifty percent of these voted for Trump. Nonetheless, these people, and their concerns and the conditions that generated these, will persist long after this administration is gone.

    Their concerns and conditions should also alarm, and need to be acknowledged and addressed by, anyone who cares about democracy. Otherwise, we risk misunderstanding the interest and goals of our fellow Americans, and returning to these destructive conditions in the future.

    Such a response needn’t entail authorizing their actions or even endorsing their concerns. Rather, it can recognize these while challenging underlying assumptions or foundational principles, and offering alternative perspectives. Still, it must include explicit recognition if the damage is to be repaired and a better future is to be constructed.

    Part of this process will obviously include rebuilding trust. That will be challenging enough when it involves the federal, state, and perhaps even local governments. For me, it will be even more so when it pertains to my fellow Americans.

    This obligation according to some might be greater for those who legitimized this political and social destruction, which makes sense. At the same time, the greater good might require us to meet them halfway no matter how righteous our distrust might be if only to prioritize the future of our nation over political or personal grievance.

    Such an approach is one I’m hoping to hear from anyone who wants my vote, and wants to lead us, in the future.

  • Ample Abundance

    Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (2025) in their recent co-authored book offer an assessment of and an alternative for the American political state of affairs.

    Klein and Thompson criticize both Republicans and Democrats for different and similar reasons. Conservatives for example cannot acknowledge the limits of markets for example and call for small government while embracing large policies. Liberals for instance privilege process over outcomes and embrace political solutions but reject these for their own communities.

    Both more importantly misunderstand the economy and endorse scarcity. A better approach they argue is less concerned with the size of government or the politics of identity and more with capacity and outcomes, and assumes abundance.

    This underlying assumption arises from their observations that substantial changes have slowed and that big ideas are harder to generate. These and other conditions they suggest reflects a general failure to build, invent, and even dream of solutions, which lie at the center of their abundance approach.

    Their perspective as some have noted (e.g., Kazis 2025 or Teachout 2025) is short on specifics. However, such a criticism misunderstands the purpose of this book, which is to critique conventionally liberal perspective, and the larger context in which this exists.

    In this more limited goal, their book seems sufficient. Such an opinion seems validated by others who have used their account to organize regional and national events. Its usefulness even extends to politicians elsewhere, which is an additional endorsement.

    Anything that attempts in other words to account for the sclerotic political present and offer an alternative, and hopeful, future is enough return on the time invested in reading it.