Potential Binds Complicate Voucher Debate

By Jeff Archer

If Milwaukee's publicly financed voucher program gets the go-ahead to include religious schools, Bob Smith would like his school to participate. But the president of Messmer High, an independent Roman Catholic school, is also wary.

Inside the measure that would open the state-sponsored program to religious schools--an expansion now pending a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling--is a provision requiring participating schools to honor parents' requests that their children be excused from religious activities. Therein lies the rub.

"Our Catholicity is not negotiable," Mr....