For 12 years Republicans have been trying to bring about some changes in the D.C. public schools. I've stood on this floor and debated this issue in the context of the D.C. Appropriations Bill. Every time we try to try something different in D.C., we are told no, we can't upset the status quo. There are problems in every phase of the educational process. There are school system employees who display no advancement in the education of students.
Instruction is inconsistent.
In many schools, test results have not been shared. The teacher appraisal process has been a joke. In the 1988-1989 school year, not one teacher received a conditional or unsatisfactory rating. This appeared in the Washington Post in 1992, some four years after the first articles appeared in this same newspaper. Every time the Republicans come to the floor and ask for an incremental kind of change, we are told no, you're undermining the confidence in public schools.