The Democrat mayor of Chicago is taking heat for slipping six members onto the city’s school board, who then forced out the fiscally cautious CEO, thus allowing the mayor to attempt to rush pro-teachers’ union policies into place before the next elected school board has a chance to make any decisions when they take office in January.
In the sort of political shenanigans so often seen in Chicago, Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson — who ran as the teachers’ union candidate — had tried to push the school board to approve a risky and extremely expensive plan to take out a high interest loan of $300 million so that he could give Chicago’s teachers fat pay raises and a big new contract despite the city’s fiscal crisis.
However, board CEO Pedro Martinez opposed the irresponsible loan idea and nixed Johnson’s attempt to give a huge payoff to the teachers’ union that got him elected in 2023. In response, the mayor demanded that Martinez resign and he began agitating the rest of the board to force that resignation. Because of the political chicanery, the seven board members resigned en masse in October in protest over the mayor’s pressure campaign.
That left Johnson the freedom to appoint seven new members, all hand-picked, because as things stand today, the entire Chicago school board is under the control of the Chicago mayor’s office.
Consequently, Johnson did just that by appointing six new board members — all beholden to the teachers’ union — which then turned around and set a meeting to consider firing board CEO Martinez. And on December 20, that handpicked body did fire Martinez in an unsurprising 6-0 vote.
Mayor Johnson did not get everyone he wanted on the board, though, when he botched his very first move after the mass resignation. He initially appointed Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson as his new board president. But in a matter of days, it was revealed that Rev. Johnson (who is no relation to the mayor) had spent years disgorging waves of hate-filled, antisemitic social media posts and comments. Rev. Johnson resigned only a few weeks after taking the job.
Regardless, despite the mayor’s loss of his new board CEO, political observers in Chicago now expect Johnson’s pawns on the school board to rush through new policies to satisfy the rapacious teachers’ union.
Furthermore, Johnson is rushing through all these tumultuous changes because he has a political deadline. On January 15, a new school board consisting of 10 members elected by Chicago’s voters in November’s elections and 11 appointed by Johnson will take office after the state legislature passed a law changing the board from one completely appointed and controlled by the mayor to one that is half-elected and only half-controlled by the mayor.
So Johnson only has a little more than three weeks left to take advantage of a school board that is 100 percent under his control and to use that power to force massive, consequential changes before the people elected by the voters even have their first opportunity to do their jobs.
This situation has driven several members of the Chicago City Council to blast Mayor Johnson for his power play.
During Friday’s special meeting of the newly ensconced school board, Alderman Nicholas Sposato excoriated Johnson and blasted the new board members, calling them “a bunch of political hacks that are stepping in to do some dirty work,” according to Crain’s Chicago Business.
Ald. Silvana Tabares also chimed in, calling Johnson a “walking conflict of interest” for his fealty to the Chicago Teachers Union and his insistence on placing their interests ahead of children and voters.
All of this spurred Crain’s to call for Johnson’s resignation.
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