Choice Words

Ed. Dept. official touts voucher plan to advocates for Catholic schools.

A senior Department of Education official faced a sympathetic crowd last week as he promoted the voucher elements of President Bush’s plans for renewing the No Child Left Behind Act—ideas that will surely prove a tougher sell in the Democratic-controlled Congress.

“This set of reauthorization proposals really shows the administration reaffirming its commitment to school choice,” Morgan Brown, who heads the department’s office of innovation and improvement, said at an education conference hosted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Advocates for Roman Catholic schools have long backed the idea of publicly financed vouchers to pay tuition at Catholic...