top of page

A Pro-Charter, Pro-Privatization Website Unveiled A Fawning Profile of Pedro Martinez And His Team


Pedro Martinez, Mohammed Choudhury, and Patti Radle are the new darlings of the national movement to privatize America’s public schools.


That should tell you all you need to know.


The pro-charter, pro-privatization website The 74 Million recently published a series of articles on the ‘transformation’ undertaken by SAISD superintendent Pedro Martinez and his team.


Martinez touted the articles in a recent email to SAISD employees, and the series has been given prominence on the district website. Unsurprisingly, the portrait painted of the man who masterminded the handing-over of Stewart Elementary to Democracy Prep, even as it broke out of IR status, is little more than a fawning (and, one must suspect expensive) exercise in public relations.


We should thank The 74 Million for laying bare the reality that SAISD district leaders are the toast of big-business school ‘reformers’.

More importantly, however, the series of articles and videos lays bare the close ideological and practical relationship between Martinez, his innovation tzar Mohammed Choudhury, and the school reformers hell-bent on privatizing public education for profit.


That district administrators block walk in local communities may come as something of a surprise to members of the Stewart community.

The 74 Million is the brainchild and privatization propaganda project of Campbell Brown, former NBC and CNN reporter, and current advocate for the dismantling of public education for private profit. Funders of the 74 Million include The Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Jonathan Sackler (of OxyContin producer Purdue Pharma) and the Walton Family Foundation.


That the SAISD superintendent’s greatest cheerleaders are the big business interests with their sights aimed at privatizing the American public school system should come as little surprise. The Broad School graduate has relentlessly pursued a path marked by education ‘reform’ measures straight out of the school privatizers’ playbook. The school board have been collaborators, either out of the ignorance that comes from not doing one’s homework to learn who these outside entities are and what they’re about, or because they actually believe in the privatization of public education and are willing to assist in its demise. His board president and chief innovation officer have shown themselves willing to sell-out the communities they’re meant to serve in order to facilitate access to lucrative public funds for corporate education interests.



We should thank The 74 Million for laying bare the reality that SAISD district leaders are the toast of big-business school ‘reformers’. We were right: big money interests are coming for our public schools. San Antonio is ground zero in a school privatization offensive that has already decimated public schools in Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans, and is currently using the the disaster in Puerto Rico to savage its public education system for private profit.


Pedro Martinez, Mohammed Choudhury, and Patti Radle are the new darlings of the national movement to privatize America’s public schools.


That should tell you all you need to know.

bottom of page