Austin Berg:

NEW: Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates is calling attention to Chicago Public Schools borrowing during Pedro Martinez’s tenure as CFO.

But Jill Jaworski, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s hand-picked CFO, served as a financial advisor on $7.6B in CPS borrowing across 19 deals from 2011-2019. You can find the full list of deals in the table below.

So why is Gates calling attention to borrowing under Martinez, but not Jaworski?

Because she’s trying to draw attention away from her reckless demand for the schools to issue a $300M payday loan to pay for the union’s contract demands. It would cost $700M+ over the life of the deal.

The misdirection isn’t working.