Chicago’s Nasty Schools Showdown

Mayor Brandon Johnson wants to fire the schools chief to please a union

WSJ editorial. 

"Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson owes his job to the Chicago Teachers Union, and he’s now showing how far he’ll go to serve his benefactors. Witness the mayor’s showdown with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Pedro Martinez over the teachers union contract negotiations.

On Thursday the Chicago Board of Education met amid rumors it would vote to fire Mr. Martinez at the mayor’s urging. It didn’t, but the threat remains that the schools chief could be ousted for refusing to endorse Mayor Johnson’s plan for reckless borrowing to feed union demands. 

The issue is the CTU contract, which expired in June. Union President Stacy Davis Gates says her union needs 9% annual raises, 45 days off school each year and a list of other benefits that could cost the city between $10.2 billion and $13.9 billion between 2025 and 2028, according to the Illinois Policy Institute.

Chicago can’t afford anything close to that. Rather than disappoint his union buddies, Mayor Johnson wants the school district to take out a $300 million loan to cover higher teacher salaries and pension costs next year. CPS has a junk credit rating, so Mr. Johnson’s loan would end up costing the school district around $700 million.

The CPS CEO refused to go along with the heist. CPS called the plan a “fictional or phantom revenue source” and Mr. Martinez refused to sign off on it. For that act of logic, Mayor Johnson called for Mr. Martinez’s resignation. The schools chief declined.

Now the mayor, Ms. Davis Gates and the CTU’s allies are trying a smear campaign to push him out by other means. In advance of the Board of Education meeting, Ms. Davis Gates accused Mr. Martinez of a plan to close some city schools, and said the mention of schools closings “triggers a trauma.”

Mr. Martinez has said he has no intention of closing schools. On Friday the school board also voted unanimously to prohibit any school closings through 2027. This ignores a study from the Fordham Institute showing that “nearly three in five school buildings are underutilized” and more than a third of CPS schools are half empty. Any serious plan to improve the city’s public schools would include moves to consolidate resources to put toward instruction. But that would require putting the children—and not the teachers union—first."