Enough.
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s handpicked school board — the second he’s chosen in just 19 months on the job, now led by the third board president he’s appointed — is set to remove Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez from his post. Martinez’s crime: failing to cave in to the Chicago Teachers Union’s outrageous demands for pay raises at double the inflation rate and the hiring of thousands more CTU members.
Those demands, which CPS has estimated would cost an estimated $3.5 billion over four years, quite possibly would bankrupt the nation’s fourth largest school system. At a bare minimum, financing this bullying union’s agenda would require hundreds of millions in new debt at God knows what kind of interest rate. Frankly, we wonder whether investors would have an appetite for such bonds at any price given that CPS’ debt already is junk-rated.
This way lies madness. And Chicago’s deeply unpopular mayor, the former CTU organizer improbably elected to run the city with millions in union contributions, clearly cares not for the fiduciary duties his job requires.
As a candidate, Johnson memorably said during a debate, when queried about his ties to CTU, “Who better to deliver bad news to a friend than a friend?” People remember that line well, but less well recalled is what he said just before: “There might be a point (during) negotiations, that the Chicago Teachers Union’s quest and fight for more resources — we may not be able to do it.”
We are at that point. We are, in fact, well past that point. State political leaders, from Gov. JB Pritzker to Senate President Don Harmon to House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, have said publicly in effect that no financial rescue for CPS is coming from Springfield if Johnson and CTU continue down this ruinous financial path.
There. Is. No. Money.
So here we are. CTU’s friend on the fifth floor, far from serving as a messenger of this reality as he said he would, continues to move heaven and earth, debasing himself and his office in the process, in order to serve the bidding of a union that all Chicagoans can see now is this man’s unreasonable boss.
Enough.
The business community in Chicago is beyond alarmed. “For a lame-duck school board to call a special session with just two days’ notice and just three weeks before a hybrid elected school board is seated is an affront to the voters of Chicago,” the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago said. “We strongly call on the board and the mayor to respect the will of the voters and cancel the special session so that the incoming board can address any outstanding issues.”
The Civic Committee’s allusion to Chicago’s first-ever vote for school board members in November is particularly apt. Voters chose 10 new board members, who will take their seats in mid-January. CTU’s demands, and Johnson’s monthslong crusade to fire Martinez in order to appease the union, were very much front-and-center issues in that election. With its campaign war chest and its organizing chops, CTU was expected to dominate those races. Instead, voters rejected CTU-endorsed candidates in six of nine contested races (one CTU-endorsed candidate ran unopposed).
Those six are speaking up now, warning Johnson and the current board to stand back until the new panel, made up of the 10 newly elected members plus another 11 Johnson gets to appoint per state law, is up and running.
Che “Rhymefest” Smith, the Grammy Award-winning hip-hop artist elected in the South Side 10th District, spoke especially eloquently. He said the board should “not split the children’s school year … and make extreme decisions.” And he leveled an unusual warning to the individual board members themselves, who could be defendants in a lawsuit if they move to fire Martinez for cause, which clearly is unjustified. “Consider the legal jeopardy you’re putting yourself in,” Rhymefest said. “Consider the legal jeopardy you’re putting CPS in. Consider the disruption to our children.”
Mayor Johnson. CTU President Stacy Davis Gates. If you’re not going to listen to the business community, if you won’t listen to taxpayers, if you won’t even respect the collective voice of voters, heed the words of Rhymefest. He won a highly contested race on the South Side, in an area Johnson and CTU considers their base, and the CTU-endorsed candidate there came in third.
Rhymefest reminded us what this should be all about: the kids in the Chicago Public Schools.
Is there any aspect of this bare-knuckled, machine-style political war more grotesque than CTU and Johnson’s insistence that they’re causing all this upheaval for the sake of Chicago kids? People aren’t fools. They see what CTU’s present leadership is pursuing — more members, more dues, more wherewithal to continue to finance a political machine that’s dragging the city into decline.
Martinez’s future as CPS CEO must not be decided in some obscene pre-holiday rush as Chicagoans turn to their families. It must not be determined before the first-ever board members whom Chicago voters directly elected can have their say.
To proceed with this kangaroo-court vote would make a mockery of democracy in Chicago. We cannot say it more plainly than that.
To this point, Martinez has bravely stood up to a vicious union-led campaign to discredit him and a mayor who has lost any credibility on the issue of public schools. We’re told this board has made more than one offer to pay Martinez to resign, raising the potential cost to taxpayers of his exit. If he agreed to go, Chicagoans would be paying for two CEOs simultaneously, Martinez and his replacement. That’s how little this board — and this mayor, who’s guided this unseemly process behind the scenes — think of taxpayers.
That’s your money, Chicago, that they’re dangling in front of Martinez.
That’s your money, Chicago, that they’re risking in a potentially pricey legal war if they fire him and violate his employment contract in so doing.
Enough.
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