Education

‘The Experience of a Lifetime’: CPS CEO Pedro Martinez Reflects on Tenure as He’s Set to Leave School District

Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez called his nearly four years as district leader the “experience of a lifetime” as he prepares to leave his post months after his termination by the Board of Education.

Martinez on Thursday reflected on his time as Chicago’s schools chief during what will be his final monthly meeting of the board before he exits the city to take over as Massachusetts’ next school board commissioner.

“This district welcomed me with open arms when I came to the United States from Mexico at the age of 5,” an emotional Martinez said. “I was at Walsh Elementary, where I learned how to speak English, where teachers began to see the potential in me that I did not see in myself.”

Martinez’s dismissal came following a monthslong feud with Mayor Brandon Johnson over district finances and ongoing negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union — where Johnson worked as an organizer prior to his election victory in 2023 — over a new contract. That contract was eventually finalized in April.

Martinez’s final day with CPS will be June 18. Johnson has not yet named an interim successor while the board has begun its search for a permanent replacement.

First appointed in 2021 by then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Martinez is a CPS graduate who previously served as the district’s CFO from 2003 to 2009 and led the San Antonio Independent School District before returning to Chicago.

He said Thursday he was proud of the way he and the school district navigated the COVID-19 pandemic when he became schools chief, using federal relief funds to “invest largely in our people to meet the challenge of the moment” by hiring more teachers, tutors, counselors and support staff to help students during an unprecedented crisis.

Martinez also highlighted improvements in the classroom during his tenure, pointing to record graduation rates, significant post-pandemic academic gains in reading and math and the fact that CPS grads have earned some $2 billion in scholarships in recent years.

“I’m proud of the steps we took to get there,” Martinez said. “As I prepare to close this chapter in my career, I’m overwhelmed with feelings of gratitude.”

Martinez and Johnson butted heads for months throughout 2024.

The CEO said he rejected a request by Johnson to resign his position last year. But the mayor’s handpicked, seven-member board unanimously voted to fire Martinez in December — the final action of that fully appointed body before it expanded to the 21-member, partially elected board that exists now.

Five of those seven members who voted to fire Martinez remain on the current board. Because he was fired without cause, Martinez’s contract allowed him to remain in his position for six additional months.

Johnson later defended those board members, saying they were carrying out his vision for the school district. Martinez subsequently sued the city after his dismissal, and that lawsuit remains ongoing.

The CTU also zeroed its attacks in on Martinez, rather than Johnson, as it pushed for a new labor agreement, calling the CEO the biggest impediment to getting a deal over the goal line.

Upon concluding his remarks Thursday, some — but not all — members of the board gave Martinez a standing ovation.

Che “Rhymefest” Smith, who joined the board in January as one of its first elected members, said Thursday that it was Martinez who was the first to reach out to him following his election victory.

“You didn’t tell me what to do, you didn’t tell me how to do it,” Smith said. ”The advice you gave me was to lean into the complexity … peel the layers of the onion until you get to the evidence-based solutions and use the evidence to center children and help children.”

Smith called that the best advice he’s received since he’s joined the board.

Another board member, Carlos Rivas Jr., thanked Martinez for his contributions to the city and CPS, calling his exit a “really great loss to our district.” He also criticized other members and officials for pushing him out of Chicago.

“I really applaud your integrity,” Rivas said, “and I pray to God that I’m never attacked as badly as you have been attacked by people on this board, by people in this room. I don’t know how you did it.”

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