Board of Education offers buyout to CPS CEO Pedro Martinez

The Board of Education has offered a buyout to embattled Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez, but the schools chief has not agreed to leave his post, two sources told the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ.

The move is the latest effort to oust Martinez and the biggest sign to date that the months-long power struggle between Mayor Brandon Johnson, his school board and the chief executive of the city’s schools is coming to a head this month.

Replacing Martinez is reaching new urgency for the mayor, his school board and their allies at the Chicago Teachers Union, who want to land a new collective bargaining agreement before mid-January, when a new 21-member partly elected school board takes over. The union has accused Martinez of being an obstacle to its demands. Just two weeks ago, the board instructed Martinez to settle the contract in the “coming days.”

CPS officials responded that they shared the desire to swiftly wrap up the contract but, in a five-page letter, continued to defend their positions, making clear that the two sides were far apart.

The buyout offer comes after a whirlwind of developments — Martinez said the mayor asked him to leave; the entire school board resigned; a new board president also left in controversy; and public spats flared between surrogates for Johnson and Martinez. Martinez has been on thin ice since August, when the Sun-Times and WBEZ first reported that Johnson’s administration was laying the groundwork to replace him.

Facing pressure to leave what he has called a “dream job,” Martinez has hired William J. Quinlan, a high-profile litigation lawyer who served as general counsel to the state of Illinois under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

“Pedro Martinez intends to honor his contract with the Chicago Public Schools and see that the 325,305 students and parents get the benefit of what they bargained with him,” Quinlan said in a statement.

The Chicago Tribune first reported the school board’s buyout offer.

At a meeting in November, the board hired outside law firm Cozen O’Connor, then spent four hours in closed session talks. Right before moving behind closed doors, the board added personnel matters to the list of discussion items, which could have included Martinez’s job status.

There has been added attention and scrutiny to every move the Board of Education has made over the past two months, with speculation heading into every public meeting about when and how they would try to push out Martinez.

In that time, the six board members have not responded to requests for comment.

Martinez has defended his record at CPS, saying he helped shepherd the district through the latter stages of remote learning, then the return to classrooms and a subsequent nation-leading recovery in reading and math. He also has pointed to a revamp of the district’s school funding formula that activists, including the CTU, have long requested.

But CTU contract negotiations have proven to be a chief point of contention.

When the 21-member board takes office in January, with 10 members elected on Nov. 5 and another 11 appointed by the mayor, it might be harder to reach consensus on a CTU contract. Johnson’s handpicked board members are pushing hard to get a deal with the union now, but some elected board members will be opposed to the mayor and CTU.

Union leaders have also said they see President-elect Donald Trump as an existential threat to the school district that they want their contract to protect against.

Martinez and his team seem to be unwilling to meet many of the CTU’s demands, particularly around staffing, which they have said are far too expensive for the cash-strapped district that just faced a half-billion-dollar deficit this year. Martinez, like the mayor and CTU, has pushed for more state funding. But there’s no guarantee that comes through after they were rejected last spring and as the state faces its own financial difficulties.

The two sides also still seem to be far apart on big noneconomic issues, including planning time for elementary school teachers and whether CPS teachers are forced to use a district-mandated curriculum.

Given that the mayor used to work for the CTU, was catapulted to office with the union’s support and remains tightly aligned with the teachers union’s goals, CTU leaders have said they’re bewildered that it has taken so long to get a deal done. Negotiations began in April.

The teachers union could go on strike in February, though that would be a shocking twist after they helped win the mayor’s office.