Join Chalkbeat Chicago’s free every day e-newsletter to maintain up with the most recent information on Chicago Public Colleges.
Chicago Public Colleges CEO Pedro Martinez is a finalist to be the subsequent state commissioner of Massachusetts’ Division of Elementary and Secondary Schooling.
Martinez — who is about to go away CPS on the finish of June after the college board voted in December to fireside him with out trigger — is certainly one of 42 individuals who utilized for the job and is certainly one of three finalists, who will all interview with the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Schooling on Thursday throughout a public assembly. The opposite candidates are Jack Elsey, founding father of the Michigan Educator Workforce Initiative and former chief of innovation and incubation at Chicago Public Colleges, and Lily Laux, the previous deputy commissioner of college packages on the Texas Schooling Company.
The board is predicted to decide on somebody at a particular assembly on April 22, in response to that assembly’s agenda. The board will then ship its advice to the state’s secretary of training — who’s at the moment serving as interim commissioner — for ultimate approval.
Former Commissioner Jeff Riley stepped down a couple of 12 months in the past for private causes, WBUR reported.
If picked, Martinez would step right into a job in a state that’s pushed again in opposition to the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on funding and what’s taught in faculties, a lot like Chicago and Illinois. Massachusetts state officers have blasted federal training funding cuts, signed on to a lawsuit in opposition to halting COVID reduction funding for faculties, and rebuffed a current demand from the Trump administration to affirm that it’s going to not promote variety, fairness, and inclusion efforts. Final week, the interim training commissioner wrote that Massachusetts follows federal legal guidelines and can “proceed to advertise variety.”
It’s at the least the second job in public training that Martinez has sought since he was fired in December. In February, Martinez was certainly one of six candidates within the working for a job as superintendent of Clark County College District in Nevada, which incorporates Las Vegas, however didn’t make it to the ultimate spherical of interviews.
Chicago Public Colleges declined to remark.
The Massachusetts board employed a search agency earlier this 12 months to seek out its subsequent commissioner. The board should select somebody for the position with a two-thirds approval vote, then suggest that option to the state’s training secretary, an advisor to the governor who will approve or reject that advice.
The Massachusetts position would contain overseeing the state’s roughly 400 college districts, which in whole enroll greater than 914,000 college students, in response to state information. CPS is a district with roughly 324,000 college students enrolled at greater than 600 faculties.
Lots of Massachusetts’ demographics differ from these of Chicago Public Colleges, the place 47% of youngsters are Hispanic, 35% are Black, 11% are white and 4.7% are Asian American. Throughout Massachusetts, greater than half of youngsters in public college are white, one other quarter are Hispanic, 10% are Black, and seven.5% are Asian American, in accordance to state information.
Almost 21% of scholars have disabilities, 14% are English learners, and 42% of scholars come from low-income households throughout Massachusetts, information present. In Chicago, practically 72% of youngsters come from low-income households, 27% are English learners, and 16% have disabilities.
With Martinez on the best way out, Chicago’s Board of Schooling should discover a new chief too. The board has employed a search agency and not too long ago handed a decision requiring the subsequent head of CPS to have a superintendent’s license. Illinois legislation at the moment exempts the CPS CEO from that requirement.
Martinez’s firing adopted months of disagreement with Metropolis Corridor and Mayor Brandon Johnson on the right way to pay for brand new labor contracts and different prices because the district faces main monetary challenges. Amid that dispute, Johnson’s total appointed college board stepped down in October.
Earlier than Chicago, Martinez was the superintendent of San Antonio Unbiased College District. Earlier in his profession, he labored for the Nevada Division of Schooling as an training coverage advisor.
From 2012 to 2014, he was the superintendent of Washoe County College District in Reno, Nevada — a job he was additionally fired from for allegedly misrepresenting himself as an accountant, the Reno Gazette Journal reported. Martinez mentioned he didn’t misrepresent himself and later filed a wrongful termination lawsuit, which was settled for $500,000, and the varsity board mentioned it solely meant to place Martinez on an administrative go away, in response to the Gazette Journal.
This story has been up to date to notice CPS declined to remark.
Reema Amin is a reporter protecting Chicago Public Colleges. Contact Reema at [email protected].
