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An immigrant from Mexico he was raised in Chicago, graduated from Juarez School, and earned degrees at the University of Illinois, and De Paul university, so his cred as a hometown boy made good rings true.
In naming him, Mayor Lori Lightfoot praised his commitment to low income students, and mostly Hispanic, from his last post in San Antonio. Yet, he joins a long list of saints and sinners who have held that post, including the now infamous Barbara Byrd Bennet who became a jailed felon after a kickback scheme from a former employer, to others that seemed, more or less, to warm the seats of their office chairs, interims excepted.
Being the seventh CEO in ten years gives many locals pause to see what, if any skills he can bring to a system beset by racial inequality, poverty, and homelessness, against a public that doesn’t trust the system, its adherents, or the ability to provide a sound education.
Martinez, unlike his recent successor, Janice Jackson, has no education degree, no classroom experience, and earned his stripes on the finance side with degrees in accounting and the requisite MBA.
In addition, while he did diversify the student population in San Antonio he did so through a partnership with charter schools that were heavily supported both in scope, and support, with a corporate model.
Much of that was supported by graduating from the Broad Superintendents Academy, who many see as taking a business model, as its focus. And, this will undoubtedly make the powerful Chicago Teachers Union cringe, who after winning victories with Lightfoot, still has her, and her appointe, in its sights.
There was also a fellowship in the Public Leadership Project at Harvard University, but this, like BSA, seems thin compared to Jackson, with her solid educational credentials.
While there is a moratorium on charter schools in Chicago, coming into town with that as a stain, will not make his tenure easy. Add to that the sheen of a corporate model, the future battles can already be seen.
From the jump, Martinez faces three immediate issues: the Covid pandemic and how it will affect instruction, and its return to in person learning, the demands from the CTU for protection of its teachers, and staff; the continued need for the so called wrap around services, including nurses, and social workers; and, the budget that allows, at least parity with its suburban counterparts, and declining enrollment, and the decision to close, or even merge some schools.
He has leaned heavily on his personal narrative, but this can only take him so far. In fact, Alejandra Lopez, president of the employee union in the San Antonio district cautioned, “Don’t be fooled by his personal narrative of growing up as a working class person, because I think unfortunately that can serve as a bit of distraction from what his records shows,” reported The Chicago Sun Times.
CTU has said, in a statement, with a side swipe at the mayor, “Despite having no classroom or in school experience, Mr. Martinez will have to be an independent thinker, a far better partner and collaborator than Mayor Lightfoot,”
He also will face a new 21 member school board, a long sought dream by progressive educators to give a role to parents, but one that was trashed by Lightfoot, despite her earlier promises, as a mayoral candidate, to look favorably, at least, on a hybrid model.
Martinez responded that, “for the last decade, that’s all I've had is school boards,” but affirmed that his allegiance is to the mayor, and, “the support of the city.”
He had a run-in with a school board in Nevada, which fired him, but was later forced to retreat, on a technicality, and hire him back, and later send him out with a six figure salary.
It’s unclear exactly how many Latinx students are in Chicago schools, the Chicago Sun Times approximated that while being one third in 2000, they are half of the district today.
Certainly, the optics of having a Latino also supports their growing political power in Chicago, and also as the recent census shows, people of color are taking a dominant feature in American life.
No one is expecting a honeymoon period for Martinez, and his track record is often uncomfortable reading: facing a possible takeover by the state of Texas if low performing schools did not turn around, he felt he was left with no choice than to partner with charters, reported Chalkbeat, claiming, It left my board and I with really limited options.”
The subsequent partnership with a high school charter, called “the Centers for Applied Science and Technology, or CAST. . .which have an impressive list of university partners, tout internships and dual credit opportunities. . . quickly became a draw.”
Problems arose when these schools adopted “a substantial fraction of their enrollment from wealthier areas outside city limits,” that increased enrollment, as well as “economic diversity but meant some local city students had to compete for seats.”
In Chicago, Martinez will also have to face black parents and their distrust of a system that saw 50 of its neighborhood schools close under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and the threatened, but failed recent action to close a high school, and transfer their students to an award winning elementary school, displacing the latter.
Like many school systems across the country Chicago faces using emergency funds from the federal government, but also the temptation to use that money for additional personnel, but fear that when the money ends, which is only temporary, how can they sustain them on a tight payroll?
Inquiries as to Martinez’s salary have not been met by local media.
