An Alabama congressman is being asked by D.C. education officials to apologize after he said schools in the nation’s capital are “inmate factories.”

“You’ve got crappy schools. Your schools are not only dropout factories, they’re inmate factories,” said Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Hoover, to D.C. officials testifying before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee during a hearing last week.

Phil Mendelson, chairman of the D.C. Council and one of the district officials who testified during the hearing, titled “Overdue Oversight of the Capital City: Part I,” shook his head at Palmer’s remark.

“I don’t agree that the D.C. public schools are inmate factories,” he said.

“I’m not saying all of them are. I said ‘you have some crappy schools,’” the congressman replied, although he never said “some” of the schools are “crappy.”

“So you’re telling me all of them are excellent?” Palmer continued.

“No, I’m not saying all of them are excellent, but I would not say that they are factories for crime,” Mendelson responded.

The Alabama congressman suggested the statistics back up his assertion, claiming more than 60 percent of inmates in the nation’s prisons are high school dropouts.

“We have a problem in our schools,” Palmer said.

Mendelson said the council has been fighting with the schools’ chancellor over increased funding for individual schools.

Meanwhile, education officials in the district said they deserve an apology from Palmer.

Rian Reed, a D.C. public school teacher, told the Washington Post that Palmer’s remark was hurtful.

“It really resembles bullying to me,” she said. “With our students just coming off the stress of the pandemic and dealing with real inequities, they do not deserve someone coming in and calling them inmates when they are truly gifted and talented and have so much to give to this world.”

Capital City Public Charter School pointed out in a tweet that two of their “inmates” were accepted to top institutions: Harvard University and the University of California at Berkely:

Palmer did not immediately respond to a request from AL.com about the calls for an apology.