D.C. Budget Bill Includes School Voucher Plan

By Robert C. Johnston

Washington

Needy students in the District of Columbia could get up to $3,000 in federal funds to pay tuition at public or private schools of their choice under a package of proposals approved by the House last week.

The "education scholarships" are just the most controversial piece of a wide-ranging school-reform initiative that the House voted 241-177 to attach to its 1996 appropriations bill for the District of Colum- bia. The plan would make the capital city's troubled school system a laboratory for a long list of reform ideas--with an emphasis on choice, charter schools, and academic standards--and wrest a great deal of authority...