A closely divided U.S. Senate resumed debate yesterday on a federal school voucher program for the District after the collapse of talks aimed at reaching a bipartisan compromise on the controversial plan.

Mayor Anthony A. Williams, who has lobbied intensely for the program, made a historic visit to the chamber during the debate. Visiting as the guest of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), he became the first D.C. mayor to appear on the Senate floor since at least 1979, Senate officials said.

Barred from speaking by Senate rule, Williams (D) listened as Feinstein, who has broken ranks with her party to embrace D.C. school vouchers, laid responsibility for the program's fate on his shoulders.

"Mayor Williams," Feinstein said, "this is your request and your program. . . . It's going to succeed or fail based on your energy, your staying power, your drive and motivation -- and I know it's there."
The $13 million voucher plan, attached to the District's $5.6 billion 2004 budget, would award "opportunity scholarships" of up to $7,500 per child to at least 1,700 low-income District children to attend private or religious schools. The plan also involves $26 million for District charter and regular public schools. A House plan passed this month provides $10 million for vouchers alone, enough to cover at least 1,300 children.

The Senate planned to continue debate today, with votes possible next week, aides to Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said.

Key factors in the delay were that the Senate will shorten its workday today in observance of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and that both pro- and anti-voucher forces were missing members yesterday. Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John Edwards (D-N.C.) were in New York for a Democratic presidential debate, and Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) was absent because of the death of his father.

"I think we have the votes, but it all depends on who's here," Feinstein said yesterday. Similarly, voucher opponents claimed they would have enough votes to defeat the legislation if all senators were present.

In an attempt to attract more supporters, Republican senators had entered into talks Wednesday with Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.). But yesterday, Landrieu and Carper said that GOP Senate leaders and the White House had rejected their offer to support the program in exchange for tougher requirements on private schools receiving the taxpayer funds.

The two Democratic senators had sought changes that would have required private schools to test their voucher students under the same rules that public schools must meet under the federal No Child Left Behind Act -- and they proposed to revoke voucher funds from private schools after three years if the students did not make adequate yearly progress.

The two senators also wanted voucher students to be taught by instructors who meet the teacher qualification standards imposed on public school teachers, and they proposed limiting the eligibility for grants to children from the lowest-performing D.C. public schools.

Instead, the Senate adopted by voice vote an amendment by Feinstein requiring that voucher students be given the same standardized test as the one used by District public schools this school year. The responsibility for that testing would fall on the organization selected by the mayor and the U.S. secretary of education to administer the voucher program, rather than on private schools. Her amendment also would require that teachers of voucher students have a college degree.

Feinstein read from a letter sent to her by Washington Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, in which McCarrick said the archdiocese schools would be willing to administer the same set of exams as the D.C. public school system. The archdiocese schools use a different test.

"Only 10 percent [of District fourth-graders] read proficiently, only 12 percent read proficiently in the seventh and eighth grades," Feinstein said. "That's what this is all about -- to see if these children have a better start in education within a different model."

In opposition, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) criticized Williams's repeated statements that District public schools had failed, saying that the mayor was overlooking signs of improvement here and in other urban school districts. While criticizing Williams's support of vouchers, Durbin said the mayor was "on the right path" in seeking greater authority over the school system, as several other big-city mayors have done.

"Before you give up on public education, come to Chicago. Look and see what happened there, in a district that is 95 percent minority, 85 percent under the poverty level," Durbin said. "We've seen dramatic increases in test scores because the mayor of the city of Chicago assumed personal responsibility."

Durbin added, "You don't have to give up on public education -- you don't have to say there's no alternative but to escape public education and go to private schools."

Williams said in an interview that he visited the Senate floor during the debate to underscore that the voucher legislation was inspired locally, though a majority of District elected officials oppose the plan.

He said he wanted to refute the notion that "the mayor was bound and gagged and tied and forced into this, that this is a federal program being foisted on us. I think me sitting right here is putting a local face on this."

Also yesterday, the House approved a resolution, 407 to 8, to permit the District to spend the local portion of its 2004 budget -- the lion's share of spending -- when the new fiscal year begins Wednesday, regardless of whether the spending plan is approved by Congress.