Stacy Davis Gates’ scheming to oust Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez has marked another step in the power portfolio she has built since engineering Brandon Johnson’s election as mayor.
Exercising her unrivaled influence over Johnson, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union began setting her sights on Martinez weeks ago — evidently in hopes of controlling both sides of the table in contract talks.
This has all come at a delicate time for CPS. The system needed to close a nearly $505 million deficit to pass a $9.9 billion budget this summer. And it did so only by ignoring a pending $175 million pension payment that Johnson is refusing to pay, as well as the price of a new teachers contract that is expected to add tens of millions in new costs.
There is no precedent in recent memory for Davis Gates’ relentless, increasingly public attacks on Martinez in recent weeks. The campaign evidently achieved a Davis Gates objective last week when Johnson, her political protege, demanded Martinez’s resignation — a request the schools CEO bravely ignored.
Davis Gates publicly denied as recently as this week that she was engineering a putsch, yet she wrote an op-ed in the Tribune calling him a failed CEO. Then, days before the first school board meeting since Davis Gates’ campaign began, she doubled down — underscoring her disdain for Martinez on WTTW-Ch. 11’s “Chicago Tonight” program.
And in that appearance, Davis Gates also uttered a few words that should not be overlooked.
“The Board of Education just passed a five-year strategic plan,” she said. “That plan mirrors our contract proposal, and it also mirrors the mayor’s Education Transition Report. All of those things mean alignment. We’ve never had that before in the history of this.”
What’s this? Alignment? Among the mayor, the Chicago Board of Education and the CTU?
In other words, Davis Gates spoke the quiet part out loud. She has conducted a demonization campaign for weeks now, yet CPS under Martinez’s leadership essentially is aiming for the same objectives as the CTU — sometimes by different means, yes, but shared key objectives nonetheless.
The school board, like the CTU, is committed to prioritizing community-focused schools; equitably allocating staff, time and money through a needs-based model, not just head count as in the past; and serving students’ physical and mental health and their safety, in addition to academic needs.
The list of alignments goes on. CPS has not committed, as the union has, to having libraries in every school. But Martinez under pressure this week did for the first time commit to keep every currently operating CPS school open at least through mid-2026. This was a major concession — and, frankly, not a responsible one. Given CPS’ financial distress, and substantial declining enrollment, school closings need serious consideration. Alignment isn’t always good: Alignment around a bad idea can go off the tracks, too.
OK, so, if CTU and CPS agree on the big stuff, why all the vitriol and scheming by Davis Gates against Martinez?
Part of the explanation lies in their contrasting roles and personalities. She dreams big: She envisions a CPS that many stakeholders do not yet see. Martinez is grounded in the real world. His vision for the future of CPS is not markedly different from Davis Gates’ — but he and the school board are the ones who must set plans for paying the bills.
There was a telling moment on this point as Davis Gates left the WTTW studios Monday night. As a TV crew from Fox affiliate WFLD-Ch. 32 approached her, she demurred. “So you’re going to make me talk to you?” she asked. “No, I’m not a public figure.”
Davis Gates did relent. But that momentary hesitation revealed a gap in her understanding of her role in the CPS-CTU saga.
For Davis Gates to disavow her role as a public figure marks a denial of accountability that is both incredible and irresponsible.
Elected by thousands of CTU members, current or retired public employees, to represent them in negotiations with a school board appointed by the city’s mayor, she is exerting great influence over a city “sister agency” with a nearly $10 billion budget. She is as public a figure as a private citizen can be.
Yes, Davis Gates is responsible to her members. We get that. She also is responsible to students in the system and to their parents. She says as much. Yet the adults in that picture aren’t just employees and parents: They’re taxpayers and city residents, too. They have an interest in a fiscally stable, responsibly run school system. Davis Gates shares responsibility for delivering that to them, too.
Her genius for envisioning a brighter future for CPS is popular with CTU members. A new focus of the union’s attention — the contract demand for affordable public housing as a means to reduce declining enrollment in CPS — is one such big idea.
But what would it cost? And how should that cost be paid? She comes up empty there, which is a significant failing on her part. If she wants to reimagine the role of CPS in city life, she needs to help define how to pay for this, too.
If Davis Gates chose to own some of that responsibility, she might succeed on several fronts. For starters, by working across the bargaining table to address the how-do-we-pay-for-it questions, she might actually get more of what she seeks. And that more responsible mindset would pay dividends in Springfield. Davis Gates tried to make the school district’s case at the Illinois Capitol with Johnson, claiming the state “owes” CPS more than $1 billion. This effort was an epic fail.
If she chooses to own the full scope of her responsibility — conjuring both the vision and the means to pay for it — the conversations might be more productive.
“We’ve got problems, we know that, but we’ve got ideas for addressing them, and we need your help.” That might work where “you owe us” has not.
This is work that Davis Gates can and should do — for the benefit of the children, and of everyone who cares for them.
David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.
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