WASHINGTON — President Bush sees two major problems with inner-city education: Children trapped in low-performing public schools can't afford to go anywhere else, and religious schools are closing because they lack students.

Bush wants to address both problems by offering low-income parents federal aid to send their children to religious and other private schools he says provide academic hope.

At a White House Summit yesterday called Inner-City Children and Faith-Based Schools, he renewed his call for spending $300 million on "Pell Grants for Kids," a voucher program fashioned after the popular federal Pell subsidies available to college students.

"In neighborhoods where some people say children simply can't learn, the faith-based schools are proving the naysayers wrong," Bush told a friendly audience of religious leaders and school choice advocates. "One way to make sure you don't lose schools is you have people that are able to afford the education sustain the cash flow of these valuable American assets."

Bush proposed vouchers when Republicans controlled Congress, but the idea went nowhere. With Democrats now in charge, prospects are even dimmer.

But the summit, combined with the recent U.S. visit by Pope Benedict XVI, is drawing new attention to the plight of Catholic schools. Enrollment nationwide has declined for decades, largely because rising tuition has made the schools less affordable.

Large cities in the Midwest and Northeast have seen the steepest drops, with enrollment at Catholic schools in places such as Detroit, Newark, N.J., and Rochester, N.Y., falling more than 30 percent over the past decade, according to the National Catholic Educational Association.

Enrollment has increased in wealthier suburbs and in the South and West, with dioceses in Atlanta, Nashville, Tenn., and Phoenix among the leading gainers.

Association President Karen Ristau, who attended the summit, applauded the president's proposal.

"Every parent should have a choice as to where they want to send their children," she said.

Vouchers provoke strong reactions.

Teachers' unions and many civil rights groups oppose them, saying taxpayers' money should be used to improve already underfunded public schools. Choice advocates and some parent groups say vouchers give poor children the same economic footing as middle-class families in choosing a better school.

Cities such as Milwaukee, Wis., Cleveland and Washington, D.C., have used vouchers, but researchers don't agree on the success of those programs, and they continue to be the subject of fierce argument.

Vouchers are so politically divisive that relatively few children will get a chance to use them, said Amy Wilkins of the Washington-based Education Trust, an advocacy group that supports ways to narrow the achievement gap between whites and minorities.

"It doesn't seem like a pragmatic way to leverage big change for poor kids," she said.

The organization advocates improving inner-city schools by improving teacher quality and strengthening curriculum.

States such as Pennsylvania, Arizona and Rhode Island have found other ways, namely tax credits, to steer aid to private schools.

Even if the summit does nothing else, participants said, it will highlight the work quietly being done in cities where public schools have been labeled low-achieving under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

"It's a great idea to publicly recognize the importance of faith-based schools and the success they've had in the inner city," said Bob Hoy, executive director of the Educational CHOICE Charitable Trust, which offers scholarships to Indianapolis children. "These are kids that are really struggling."

Soon after joining a new school, he said, "they become excited about learning."