Alexandria, VA
The American Association of School Administrators expressed strong disappointment with President Bush’s proposals to fund the many public school districts around the United States that have taken in hundreds of thousands of students displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

In a supplemental appropriations proposal sent to Congress, President Bush has asked for $488 million to compensate families for the costs associated with attending private schools. The administration is also proposing up to $1.9 billion in funding for public elementary and secondary school relief.

“With the private school voucher proposal, the administration is brazenly attempting to advance its long-time and dubious agenda to provide public dollars for private education,” says AASA executive director Dr. Paul Houston. “Also, the proposed $1.9 billion in funding for school relief falls far short of the $3.5 billion these schools will truly need for per-pupil expenditures, for students with disabilities and for inevitable administrative costs.”

Houston points out that the proposal for private school vouchers is “outrageous” in large part because public schools have borne the vast majority of the responsibility of educating the 372,000 students — from both public and private schools — displaced by the hurricane. “It is unacceptable that the administration would put forward an ideologically driven gimmick at a time of crisis that calls for pragmatic solutions,” Houston says.

AASA recently submitted its own proposals for emergency supplemental funds to Congress and the administration. Based on a review of school districts across the country, AASA recommended a total aid package of $13.5 billion for districts that need to reopen schools destroyed or damaged by the storm and to districts in other parts of the country that are accepting displaced students. This amount includes:

- $3.1 billion to underwrite the entire cost of educating the students displaced by  Katrina for the 2005-2006 school year. Although 93 percent of school funding comes from state and local sources, those funds in communities affected by Katrina have been wiped out and must be replaced by federal dollars.