Habemus Commissariorum

 Look, you make baseball jokes; I make Pope jokes.
Also, if I messed up the accusative there, please let me know. It's been awhile.

At this point, I've heard a handful of concerns raised about the incoming commissioner. Noting, first, that there really is no perfect person, and also, that we don't yet know how he's going to act as commissioner, I would observe the following: 

He got fired in Chicago. The "why" here matters enormously: Martinez, the former CFO of the Chicago Public Schools, was pressured as CEO to borrow THREE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS at a high rate of interest to settle the teachers' contract, with the hope that the state of Illinois would step in and cover it. 
If you have a problem with that, I don't know what to tell you.
He was recruited out of San Antonio, after defying Governor Abbott on safety measures on COVID. He was bought out of his contract in Washoe County, Nevada, in a case that got the school board fined for violating the state's open meeting law.

He seems to have some worryingly pro-charter views. Yes, he was pretty clear about "charter = parent choice" in his interview. Looking into his background, the San Antonio teachers' union sued the district under his leadership due to his decision to have Democracy Prep (a charter organization) run a school in the district. It's a little harder to figure out what he's (himself) been doing in Chicago on this, as the board itself voted in December to fund charter schools for this year, before taking them in house.
It isn't, to be blunt, clear to me that we were going to get an explicitly anti-charter commissioner. I am sorry. I wish that were otherwise. 
We're going to have to watch this one, no question. Let's note that in Massachusetts charter expansion is actually under the purview of the Board, not the Commissioner, and we should, if Governor Healey fills the seats open and opening, be getting a Board that is less privatization oriented. One would hope.

Also, I highly recommend reading this summation of the Chicago Tribune editorial board.