Pedro Martinez (born 1969/1970) is a Mexican-American school administrator serving as the CEO of Chicago Public Schools (the

superintendent Superintendent may refer to: *Superintendent (police), Superintendent of Police (SP), or Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), a police rank *Prison warden or Superintendent, a prison administrator *Superintendent (ecclesiastical), a church exec ...

position of

Chicago Public Schools Chicago Public Schools (CPS), officially classified as City of Chicago School District #299 for funding and districting reasons, in Chicago, Illinois, is the third-largest school district in the United States, after New York and Los Angeles. ...

). He formerly served as superintendent of the

San Antonio Independent School District San Antonio Independent School District is a school district based in San Antonio, Texas, United States. San Antonio ISD ranks is the 13th largest of Texas' 1,057 school districts. The District encompasses 79 square miles with a total population ...

and superintendent of the

Washoe County School District The Washoe County School District (WCSD) is a public school district providing public education to students in all parts of Washoe County, Nevada, including the cities of Reno and Sparks, and the unincorporated communities of Verdi, Incline Vil ...

Early life and education

Martinez was born in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. he immigrated to the United States at the age of six. He was the eldest of twelve children. He grew up in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. Martinez attended

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

at Chicago's

Benito Juarez Community Academy Benito Juarez Community Academy, (commonly known as Juarez High School), is a public 4–year high school in the Pilsen neighborhood on the west side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Juarez is named for Mexican president Benito Pablo Juáre ...

. He received a bachelor's degree in accounting from the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

, and an

Masters in Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

from

DePaul University DePaul University is a private university, private, Catholic higher education, Catholic research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Congregation of the Mission, Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th-centu ...

. Martinez later received a fellowship from the Public Education Leadership Project at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, and graduated from the Broad Superintendents Academy.

Early career

After his graduation from the University of Illinois, he first worked as an

auditor An auditor is a person or a firm appointed by a company to execute an audit.Practical Auditing, Kul Narsingh Shrestha, 2012, Nabin Prakashan, Nepal To act as an auditor, a person should be certified by the regulatory authority of accounting and au ...

, including for

Catholic Charities The Catholic Church operates numerous charitable organizations. Catholic spiritual teaching includes spreading the Gospel, while Catholic social teaching emphasises support for the sick, the poor and the afflicted through the corporal and spi ...

. In 2003, he began to work as the budget director for

, serving under

Arne Duncan Arne Starkey Duncan (born November 6, 1964) is an American educator who served as United States Secretary of Education from 2009 to 2015 and as Chief Executive Officer of Chicago Public Schools from 2001 to 2008. A lifelong resident of Chicago, Du ...

, then the district's CEO. In 2008, he was made

chief financial officer The chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization that is assigned the primary responsibility for managing the company's finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and financ ...

, and in 2009 he was made regional

for the West Side of Chicago. Two months after being made regional superintendent, he left to work in

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

. Martinez worked as a deputy superintendent for the

. He was credited with helping to increase high school graduation rates there. In April 2011, Martinez was hired as the deputy superintendent of instruction by the

Clark County School District The Clark County School District (CCSD) is a school district that serves all of Clark County, Nevada, including the cities of Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas, and Boulder City; as well as the census-designated places of Laughlin, Blue D ...

, succeeding the retiring Linda Kohut-Rost.

Superintendent of Washoe County School District

In June 2012, Martinez was hired as the of Washoe County School District, succeeding the departing Heath Morrison. Washoe County is the second-largest school district in Nevada. He was fired on July 22, 2014 after being accused of deceiving the district about his credentials as a

certified public accountant Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is the title of qualified accountants in numerous countries in the English-speaking world. It is generally equivalent to the title of chartered accountant in other English-speaking countries. In the United Sta ...

, as he was not a licensed one. His firing had been done by the

school board A board of education, school committee or school board is the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or an equivalent institution. The elected council determines the educational policy in a small regional are ...

in violation of open meeting laws, and wound up costing the taxpayers a half-million dollars in legal settlement fees to Martinez. He was reinstated after his firing had been found to have been illegal. Martinez formally left the post of superintendent in November 2014, and was succeeded by interim superintendent Traci Davis.

Superintendent of San Antonio Independent School District

Martinez became the superintendent of the

in June 2015. Martinez utilized

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

data to help calculate the extent of "need" at each of the district's schools. During his tenure, the district became the fastest-improving district in the state of

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

, and drew national attention to Martinez and his work. Its state ratings went from an "F" to a "B" during his tenure. He placed low-rated schools into the hands of private organizations, such as

charter school A charter school is a school that receives government funding but operates independently of the established state school system in which it is located. It is independent in the sense that it operates according to the basic principle of auto ...

operators, in order to improve their performances. Such a practice has received criticism from many

public education State schools (in England, Wales, Australia and New Zealand) or public schools (Scottish English and North American English) are generally primary or secondary schools that educate all students without charge. They are funded in whole or in pa ...

advocates. He would later state that Texas laws placed him in a situation where he had few options but to privatize and hand schools over to charter operators, arguing that the alternative would have been being forced to close those schools. Upon his departure from the district, Alejandra Lopez, the president of the

teachers union The New York City Teachers Union or "TU" (1916–1964) was the first New York labor union for teachers, formed as "AFT Local 5" of the American Federation of Teachers, which found itself hounded throughout its history due largely to co-membership ...

San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel, claimed she felt Martinez had failed to hear or respect stakeholders' opinions when making decisions regarding these schools, claiming, “Pedro Martinez’s tenure here was characterized by a pro-charter agenda that is a hallmark of the Broad Academy that he attended, and very top-down decision-making.” During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, Martinez was credited with pioneering ways for large city school districts to keep their schools open, while keeping students and faculty safe. He partnered with a local nonprofit, Community Labs, to provide free

COVID-19 testing COVID-19 testing involves analyzing samples to assess the current or past presence of SARS-CoV-2. The two main types of tests detect either the presence of the virus or antibodies produced in response to infection. Molecular tests for viral ...

at all school campuses, coordinated with

vaccine A vaccine is a biological Dosage form, preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease, infectious or cancer, malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verifie ...

clinics.

Texas governor The governor of Texas heads the state government of Texas. The governor is the leader of the executive and legislative branch of the state government and is the commander in chief of the Texas Military. The current governor is Greg Abbott, who ...

Greg Abbott Gregory Wayne Abbott (born November 13, 1957) is an American politician, attorney, and former jurist serving as the 48th governor of Texas since 2015. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 50th Tex ...

issued a ban on

mask mandate During the COVID-19 pandemic, face masks or coverings, including N95, FFP2, surgical, and cloth masks, have been employed as public and personal health control measures against the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. In com ...

s and

vaccine mandate A vaccination policy is a health policy adopted in order to prevent the spread of infectious disease. These policies are generally put into place by State or local governments, but may also be set by private facilities, such as workplaces or s ...

s. However, Martinez had the school district adopt a mask mandate. He also issued a

requiring for all staff to be vaccinated, which

Texas Attorney General The Texas attorney general is the chief legal officer
of the

Ken Paxton Warren Kenneth Paxton Jr. (born December 23, 1962) is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the Attorney General of Texas since January 2015. Paxton has described himself as a Tea Party conservative. Paxton was re-elected to a th ...

sued the district over. He left the job to accept his new role as head of schools in Chicago. The San Antonio Independent School District trustees accepted his resignation on September 20, 2021, voting to release Martinez from his contract with the district effective September 28. They also voted to appoint Robert Jaklich to serve as his interim successor beginning the following day. Before his departure, president of the school board Christina Martinez credited him with helping to improve its state academic rating, increasing its graduation rates, and expanding dual language programs. Others who praised him included former San Antonio mayor

Henry Cisneros Henry Gabriel Cisneros (born June 11, 1947) is an American politician and businessman. He served as the mayor of San Antonio, Texas, from 1981 to 1989, the second Latino mayor of a major American city and the city's first since 1842 (when Juan ...

and the ''

San Antonio Express-News The ''San Antonio Express-News'' is a daily newspaper in San Antonio, Texas. It is owned by the Hearst Corporation and has offices in San Antonio and Austin, Texas. The ''Express-News'' is the third largest newspaper in the state of Texas, with ...

editorial board The editorial board is a group of experts, usually at a publication, who dictate the tone and direction the publication's editorial policy will take. Mass media At a newspaper, the editorial board usually consists of the editorial page editor, a ...

CEO of Chicago Public Schools

On September 15, 2021,

Chicago mayor The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive of city government in Chicago, Illinois, the third-largest city in the United States. The mayor is responsible for the administration and management of various city departments, submits proposals and ...

Lori Lightfoot Lori Elaine Lightfoot (born August 4, 1962) is an American attorney and politician serving since 2019 as the 56th mayor of Chicago. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Before becoming mayor, Lightfoot worked in private legal practice as ...

announced that Martinez would be appointed as the CEO (superintendent) of

. Martinez declared that he would plan to take office in the final week of September. On September 22, the

Chicago Board of Education The Chicago Board of Education serves as the board of education (school board) for the Chicago Public Schools. The board traces its origins to the Board of School Inspectors, created in 1837. The board is currently appointed solely by the mayor ...

unanimously voted to approve his appointment as CEO, to take office on September 29. As scheduled, Martinez took office on September 29, 2021. He is the first

Hispanic The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad. The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...

individual to serve as CEO of the district on a permanent basis. The district is the third-largest school district in the United States.

Personal life

Martinez is married to Benice Alejo. He has two children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Martinez, Pedro 21st-century American educators 21st-century Mexican educators CEOs of Chicago Public Schools DePaul University alumni Educators from Illinois Educators from Nevada Educators from Texas Gies College of Business alumni Living people University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni Year of birth missing (living people)