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

Morgan Brown, who heads the US Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement 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.

Under the Bush plan, if a public school failed to make adequate yearly progress for at least five years under the NCLB law, its students would be eligible for vouchers worth about $4,000 each to attend religious or secular private schools. Last week, the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon of California, introduced a bill largely mirroring that plan.

This from Education Week.