Education
‘We’re Going to Transform This School District Once and for All,’ Mayor Brandon Johnson Says
Mayor Brandon Johnson vowed Tuesday to transform the Chicago Public Schools “once and for all” and said the district would be better off borrowing money to make a pension payment and cover the cost of a new contract with the Chicago Teachers Union rather than making cuts or laying off teachers.
Johnson offered his most detailed defense of his actions that have roiled the nation’s fourth largest school district during an appearance on WTTW’s “Chicago Tonight,” one day after he named six new members to the Chicago Board of Education and three weeks after CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said he refused Johnson’s request to resign.
Johnson depicted the turmoil now engulfing the district as the inevitable result of decades of mismanagement by his predecessors, who he said closed schools, cut programs, privatized operations and allowed the district to accumulate pension debt at the expense of Black and Latino children in Chicago.
“We’re going to transform this school district once and for all,” Johnson said. “They want to take us backwards.”
The district has been engulfed in turmoil since the CPS board approved a budget for 2025 that did not make a required $175 million payment to one of its employee pension funds or set aside money to pay for a new CTU contract that includes pay raises for teachers, more art teachers and services for children experiencing homelessness.
Martinez opposed plans to borrow money to cover those costs, calling the proposal backed by the mayor “exorbitant” and fiscally irresponsible.
“There’s two visions for our public schools,” Johnson said. “It’s cuts, and we’ve already seen the disaster that does. We’ve already seen that. Where parents are begging desperately for the city to believe in their children. Or we can invest in our children. And If I’m faced with a decision to cut, to take away from families in this city, versus having to keep an option on the table where we might have to borrow some money to help connect us to full transformation, I know what decision I’m going to make. I’m going to make sure we invest in children and invest in the families of this city. I’m not going to cut, and take away, layoff, fire, privatize so that other people can benefit, and the people of Chicago can lose. Not under my watch.”
Cuts and layoffs would “disrupt and destroy a very fragile school district,” said Johnson, a former middle school teacher and organizer with the CTU, which helped fund his run for mayor in 2023.
The new CPS board is set to meet for the first time on Oct. 24.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
