When Chicagoans elected a neophyte as mayor of Chicago, there was trepidation among those who didn’t vote for Brandon Johnson about what the future held. But many among them, this board included, hoped he would grow into the job after a little time in the office and act as if he represented all Chicagoans, not just those at the Chicago Teachers Union, his former employer.
But it’s clear now that the CTU, which backed Johnson with organizing muscle and millions in donations, viewed his unlikely victory as a green light for its fiscally reckless agenda. Friday’s extraordinary mass resignation of all seven of Johnson’s own, handpicked Chicago Board of Education members, just one month before Chicago voters will elect 10 new board members for the first time in city history, underscored that this mayor shares CTU’s blank-check agenda despite his duty to represent the interests of Chicago taxpayers.
Multiple news outlets described the resignations as “stunning.” It was indeed unprecedented, but it wasn’t surprising. It’s been clear for months that Johnson wanted this board to fire CPS CEO Pedro Martinez because of his refusal to add $300 million in high-cost debt to the balance sheet of a school system already up to its eyeballs in IOUs.
The confirmation that Johnson is what his detractors feared from the start — a patsy for his former union employer — is depressing, but it also should serve as a clarion call to those who crave more responsible leadership. What’s needed in this moment are courageous people willing to stand up for what’s right even if that means making some of their friends uncomfortable. That includes those who share the progressive ideals Johnson professes to represent.
The seven school board members who quit en masse sadly didn’t display that kind of courage. With a scant three months left to serve before the new board takes over in January, they could have held fast to what they’d been doing for months — to resist Johnson’s irresponsible demand to saddle taxpayers with hundreds of millions more in debt at a district already in financial distress. The message could have gone something like this: We believe CPS needs more financial support from the state, but willfully making a bad situation far worse isn’t something we’ll do, especially when our term is nearly up.
Another alternative, since we understand that some of these board members supported the mayor and others did not, would have been to air those differences in public and let the majority will prevail. That’s the way boards are supposed to function in such situations.
What appears to have happened instead is that board members, to put it bluntly, behaved like cowards, deliberately keeping hidden any differences of opinion among members. Left abandoned for now are Chicago’s CPS parents, many of whom are bewildered at the chaos and worried about who’s calling the shots on their children’s education. That’s unacceptable.
Even now, members of this board owe Chicagoans their opinions on Martinez and on Johnson’s gambit.
Are they with the progressive program at all costs? Or are they with the progressive program but not with this mayor?
We suspect there were several examples of the latter who did want to come out against the man who appointed them, and with whose administration they will have to continue to work as part of their other jobs. And we further suspect there are some who do support the mayor’s folly here, but also don’t want to be on the record so they cannot be blamed. Each board member should explain themselves. Resigning for cause can be an honorable thing to do, but not when you refuse to state the cause. The Board of Education, for goodness’ sake, is supposed to value transparency.
We acknowledge that these seven were unpaid, and most came from activist backgrounds rather than the hard-boiled world of politics. When they agreed last year to serve, they surely didn’t expect to be snared in a bare-knuckled battle. All the same, they were overseeing the country’s fourth-largest school system; this is not the minor leagues. They failed in their duty.
As for the mayor, his conduct throughout this monthslong ordeal has been abysmal. He has not come clean with the public over whether he in fact asked Martinez to resign. (Martinez says he did, and numerous media reports said so as well before Martinez confirmed it in an Opinion article we published. Yet even last week, Johnson denied doing so, beggaring belief.)
The mayor’s office then tried to spin the mass resignations as an orderly “transition” to the new hybrid board, which under state law will consist of 10 newly elected board members and 11 appointed by Johnson. That was laughable.
He will introduce his new appointees Monday morning at a South Side church, seemingly seeking sanctuary for this reckless power play.
Those seven no doubt are being installed to fire Martinez and issue the debt. With the school board’s next scheduled meeting set for Oct. 24, this travesty could well be executed less than two weeks before the city’s first-ever school board election.
There are reasons for encouragement, though. Opposition to these strong-arm tactics is coming from some unexpected places. A statement Saturday signed by 41 of Chicago’s 50 aldermen put them on record opposing the $300 million loan, questioning the plan to fire Martinez, and demanding City Council input into the appointment of the new board members. Tellingly, a majority of the council’s Progressive Caucus, ordinarily Johnson allies, were among the signatories. On Sunday, statements of alarm were issued by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago and the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.
Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th, a Progressive Caucus member, was blunt in a Saturday TikTok video: “There’s nothing progressive, transparent or accountable about the way the mayor is currently moving.”
Springfield is awakening as well. Democratic state Rep. Ann Williams, who authored the bill allowing for Chicago’s upcoming school board election, warned Saturday in a statement that if Johnson continues down the path he’s set, the state may need to intervene on how CPS is run.
The speed with which Johnson was put on notice by officials with the ability to make his job immeasurably harder was a sight to behold. Will he get the message? We think more pressure is needed — from politicians, businesspeople, nonprofits, clergy and, yes, this editorial board.
And voting in the upcoming election for school board is paramount. Desperately needed are board members with the courage to call out and oppose this sort of recklessness and chaos. Our endorsements are coming this week.
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