Education
Departing CPS Chief Pedro Martinez Says He Has No Regrets, Decries ‘Bullying’ by Mayor and CTU
Fired Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez said he has no regrets as he wraps up his tumultuous four-year tenure leading his hometown school district on Wednesday.
Late last year, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s handpicked school board fired Martinez without cause after he refused to take out a $300 million loan to cover the cost of a new teachers’ contract — but he remained on the job for the last six months, as dictated by his contract.
Martinez’s dismissal followed a monthslong feud with Johnson over district finances and negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union — where Johnson worked as an organizer prior to his election victory in 2023 — over a new contract.
In an interview with WTTW News on Tuesday, Martinez said his decision to defy the mayor was “one of the toughest decisions I ever made in my career.”
“I either had to decide either to play ball or to take a position and take a stand,” Martinez said. “I knew it was going to affect my family. I knew it was going to affect my team and our community, so I didn’t take that lightly. I took that stand.”
Johnson’s handpicked seven-member board fired Martinez at the end of last year in that body’s final move before it transitioned into a partially elected board in January.
According to Martinez, the school district’s financial problems could be eased and even erased if it could tap into more tax-increment financing, or TIF funds. TIFs are a tool used by the city to promote public and private investment across Chicago.
“TIFs have been in existence for decades; I grew up with TIFs,” Martinez said. “These are revenues that right now are being blocked off from taxing bodies — not only us, but the Park District, the City Colleges. They produce over $1.3 billion every year. Half of that money should be going to CPS. That more than covers our structural deficit. We don’t need to be raising taxes. We don’t need to be doing irresponsible borrowing.”
Martinez said it was the CTU that first suggested to him using more TIF funds to ease the district’s budget shortfall.
But sending more TIF funds to CPS would not only need the mayor’s support but require projects already approved to be canceled, or to find another source of funding. That would require the approval of Chicago City Council members who have become used to using TIF funds to finance pet projects.
Last week, Martinez filed defamation claims against the CTU, CTU President Stacy Davis Gates and Chicago School Board President Sean Harden. Those claims added to Martinez’s existing lawsuit against a number of current and former Chicago Board of Education members over his firing.
“Throughout the last six months all I’ve been getting is personal attacks,” Martinez said. “I’ve never insulted either the mayor or the union president in any personal way. I’ve always tried to keep things very professional. My goal is always to be collaborative with everybody, but they just don’t stop. … I said if I don’t stand up for myself, how do I expect my teachers, my staff to stand up? How do I expect their students to stand up? For me, it’s plain bullying and that’s really what this is about.”
Last week, the Chicago Board of Education appointed Macquline King, Johnson’s senior director of education policy and a former CPS principal, as the interim CPS CEO.
Martinez starts a new job as Massachusetts’ state education commissioner on July 1.
