When word leaked in mid-July that Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez had rebuffed Mayor Brandon Johnson’s demand that CPS add $300 million in high-cost debt to appease the mayor’s friends at the teachers union, we thought it pretty self-evident that Martinez wouldn’t be in his job much longer.
Sure enough, via a story that could be a trial balloon floating out of City Hall, Johnson now reportedly is seeking to push out Martinez and install a more agreeable CPS head. Tellingly, the mayor’s office hasn’t commented on the report. With students set to return in a little over a week, one would think the mayor would want to firmly quash such speculation quickly if he wasn’t happy with its existence.
Once the mayor decides a schools boss must go, the exit typically comes quickly. But it’s not safe to make such assumptions given the chaos of the Johnson regime, which appears to be at work once again.
What’s truly remarkable about the CPS standoff is that Martinez and Johnson’s hand-picked Board of Education together are at loggerheads with the mayor over CPS’ miserable financial situation. Johnson can’t fire Martinez directly; the board has to do it. And, if the board isn’t willing to do the dirty work, which apparently is the case, Johnson likely will have to remove the board members and install replacements who will do the job.
All the while, CPS is in fraught contract negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union, talks that are going poorly despite the presence of former CTU lobbyist Johnson on the fifth floor. CTU’s outlandish demands, including 9% average annual raises, would create a budget deficit of $2.9 billion a year from now and about $4 billion by 2028, CPS contract negotiators declared Tuesday in a public bargaining session.
That shaming of CTU, that laying bare the absurdity of the union’s positions, took place in public because the union unwisely insisted earlier this year on holding open bargaining talks. In detailing the financial catastrophe that would ensue if CTU got its way, CPS did nothing more than to lay out the plain facts, but the union was infuriated all the same. CTU President Stacy Davis Gates castigated Martinez as “insubordinate” and wondered aloud why Johnson wouldn’t deal with his difficult CPS boss accordingly.
That Johnson is trying now to cashier Martinez simply reinforces what this Editorial Board and voters generally have believed from the start, which is that this mayor is bought and paid for by his former union employer. We have opined more than once that the mayor ought to recuse himself from the contract negotiations, given that CTU was so instrumental in his election; this embarrassing confrontation between CPS officials and the mayor over the union’s demands shows why that should have happened.
Unfortunately for Johnson, he’s not holding a strong poker hand. Terms for this school board will expire in January. Chicago is holding its first-ever school board elections in November under a state law backed enthusiastically by Johnson and CTU. Voters will elect 10 new board members, and Johnson will appoint another 11, giving him nominal control until 2026, when voters will choose the remaining 11 and the board will become fully independent of the mayor’s office — at least in theory.
Meanwhile, Martinez’s employment contract entitles him to six months’ notice if he isn’t fired for cause — this political dispute certainly doesn’t rise to that level — and a severance of nearly $139,000. With the current board backing Martinez, Johnson may choose to wait until 2025 to install a new CPS boss after the new Board of Education is in place. And, if CTU thinks a leadership change will get them a better contract, the union may wait until next year to finalize a deal even though the current pact is already expired.
Or? If CTU insists Johnson move more quickly than that — Davis Gates’ comments would suggest that’s the case — things could get even more ugly and embarrassing for the mayor.
And what is all this sturm und drang about? A 2024-2025 budget that at $9.9 billion is a 5% increase over the previous year despite enrollment that is stagnant following several years of precipitous declines. The Board of Education responsibly closed a $500 million budget gap through cuts to central office personnel, debt restructuring and, yes, the (likely temporary) layoff of some 300 CTU members. CTU and Johnson have spent the last several years wishing reality were different. That’s not how to budget, whether you are a business, a government or a household.
For now, Martinez improbably has become taxpayers’ most important ally when it comes to schools, which account for more than half of Chicagoans’ property tax bills. Ald. Gilbert Villegas, 36th, framed the situation well: “There has to be someone in the room that’s making sure that taxpayers are being heard and their issues are being considered. … It just doesn’t make sense that in the middle of negotiations you want to replace the CEO because he’s providing information that you don’t like,” he told Chalkbeat.
The tragedy — and, let’s be frank, the outrage — is that the mayor of Chicago isn’t the one representing taxpayers in a battle with an unreasonable union. Instead, an unelected administrator has taken it upon himself to do the job the mayor should be doing. And Martinez’s reward for doing his job is disdain from City Hall and the sharpening of knives.
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