Joe Cunningham: “I would add my wife is a public school teacher as well with a doctorate degree. Madam Speaker, I had a high regard for…”

“I would add my wife is a public school teacher as well with a doctorate degree. Madam Speaker, I had a high regard for General Julius Becton who led D.C. in an almost impossible task, and have worked with Arlene Ackerman who is going to take his place. But I want to say, Bishop McKinney came, an African American from San Diego, that has a school of at-risk black children in the school system, at-risk children that over 90 percent of them go on to school, and they work with special vouchers in the program. I live in Washington, D.C., and I have met some good teachers, and I have met where they work to have good schools. That is true in any city, and we can find bad schools in any city. But I want to tell my colleagues, per capita, the schools in D.C. are worse. Sixty years old, the average. They have not done a very good job of managing their own city. Roofs that they had to close down the systems, and I get sick and tired of saying we are going to take money away from public education when we could have saved 35 percent for school construction out of public education by waiving Davis-Bacon to repair and build schools, but would they do it? No, because the unions did not want it. Thirty-five percent saving of money, but they would not even do it. They would not even vote to have the NEA pay its fair share of taxes in D.C. so that that money would go to the school, because, quote, that was a union.…”