WASHINGTON (AP) -- Virginia Walden-Ford grew up a true believer in public schools. Her father was a top administrator in the District of Columbia school system and her sisters taught there.

But she now thinks blacks should get government financial aid to attend private schools. On Thursday, she joined a group of black parents, educators, pastors and politicians to launch an ad campaign for the idea that's been championed by Republican presidential candidate Gov. George W. Bush.

''This is the first time I've seen a way for black kids to get out of bad schools,'' said Walden-Ford, the mother of a teen-age charter school student and past proponent of unsuccessful efforts to bring publicly funded vouchers to the District of Columbia. The nation's more than 8 million black school-age children should have the means to leave bad public schools, she said.

Black Democratic leaders traditionally have opposed the idea.

''Vouchers are a tax break for parents who already have children in private schools,'' says Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D- Ill.

The Black Alliance for Educational Options, the bipartisan group that supports vouchers, will run ads starting Sunday in newspapers mostly serving predominantly black communities, featuring Education Department statistics on the growing gulf between blacks and whites in school performance. The group believes the numbers are alarming enough to persuade black parents to support and demand school-choice programs – and inject black leadership into a movement that's needed by poor black families but led by white social conservatives.

''It's very important to build up grass roots support; only rich black conservatives have led the charge and that's not really the face of school choice,'' said Nina Shokraii Rees, an education analyst with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Members of the pro-voucher group say they aren't trying to help Bush, who wants to give vouchers to kids in poor schools that don't show improvement. Teachers unions strongly oppose vouchers, as does Vice President Al Gore, although the idea has been supported by his running mate, Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman.

''I don't know who people are voting for and I don't care; our view is that our kids have been suffering,'' said Howard Fuller, the former Milwaukee schools chief who has championed that city's experimental voucher program. But Fuller, who's voting for Bush, said, ''We don't believe the old 'just-elect-the-same-people-because-everything-is-going-to-be-better ' answer is going to work.''

Shelitha Harrelson, a New York City office manager, agrees.

''Parents want to see action; we don't want to see talk,'' said Harrelson, who's sending 10- year-old Brittney to a $23,000-a-year upper East Side academy with help from private scholarships.

Recent polls and surveys conflict on whether the public, either black or white, supports vouchers. There are a handful of small, experimental programs -- in states such as Ohio, Florida, Vermont and Wisconsin – that give poor children public money to attend private, parochial or specially chartered public schools. Nationwide, 78 percent of private school students are white; 9 percent are black and 8 percent are Hispanic.

Critics say vouchers do not address the educational ills that tend to hit predominantly minority schools the worst -- crowded crumbling buildings, violence, low test scores and high dropout rates.

''Green public dollars for black private education is just as unconstitutional as green public dollars for white private education,'' said Jackson, who says an equal-education amendment to the U.S. Constitution would give poor communities the legal backing to demand better funding from state coffers.

Critics have little to worry about, said David Bositis, an expert on black voting patterns with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington.

''The Republican Party is not viewed by African Americans as a viable alternative, and vouchers are not going to change that,'' he said. Even if more blacks do support voucher initiatives, that wouldn't be enough to get them enacted, he said. ''Look at who will vote against it ... senior citizens, white suburbanites and the teachers unions. That's a winning combination.''