Considering just how much W loves private schools (which, we know, are all better by default than any public school), this comes as no surprise.

The Bush administration yesterday proposed nearly $500 million in federal funding to help displaced private school students from the Gulf Coast enroll in private schools elsewhere in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The proposal, fleshing out a goal President Bush had announced in a speech to the nation Thursday night, would amount to the largest federal school voucher program ever, if enacted.

If you can’t get the votes by calling them "vouchers" call it "emergency aid" instead.

The federal government is already spending millions of dollars on a voucher program in DC. Now in it’s second full year, the results have been mixed at best and no valid research study (isn’t that kind of thing demanded by NCLB?) has been completed on student achievement.

But that’s just details. As long as Congress is in the mood to spend billions with little or no oversight (Hallaburton is already pigging down at the trough), it must be time to siphon even more money from the public schools.

By the way, to W and other rabid advocates of publicly-funded voucher programs: you keep claiming that such programs will improve public education. I’m still waiting for the proof.