The top Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, George Miller of California, issued a press release Tuesday accusing The New York Sun of having been used by the federal Education Department as part of a campaign to publish “Systemic Covert Propaganda.” No one from Mr. Miller’s office contacted the Sun before issuing a press release with this allegation (nor did Editor & Publisher before issuing a news story repeating it). For the record, it is a false accusation, unsupported by the federal inspector general report on the issue.

A spokesman for Mr. Miller told us the article that was covert propaganda was one we published August 3, 2004, by the president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, Kate Walsh. Ms. Walsh told us Tuesday that her organization had received a federal government grant to fund writing articles for some newspapers, but that the Sun article hadn’t been among those whose writing was funded by the government grant. While one can argue that money is fungible, Ms. Walsh said the time she spent writing the Sun piece was, like other activities of the council, supported by private foundations. She said she keeps careful time sheets to record such distinctions.

We take the matter seriously because these columns have been among those arguing for stricter disclosure in identifying funding of authors of opinion articles. We have highlighted foreign governments contributing to the Council on Foreign Relations here in New York to support the activities of Henry Siegman, a frequent contributor to the New York Times Company’s newspaper in Paris, the International Herald Tribune. Yet we haven’t heard a peep out of Mr. Miller in respect of the propriety of the Council on Foreign Relations being used as a conduit for funding from the European Commission, the government of Norway, Kuwaiti and Saudi businessmen, a Lebanese politician, and, for one year, an official of the commercial arm of the Palestinian Authority, Munib Masri.

Nor have we heard the jackleg judge of journalism complain about the Brookings Institution, another frequent supplier of opinion pieces to the New York Times Company, receiving funding in one year totaling at least $110,000 from the embassies of France and Qatar, as a July 26 posting at ItShinesForAll.com, the new blog of the Sun, disclosed. So why is Mr. Miller making a fuss about Ms. Walsh’s grant from the federal government while ignoring the foreign government money pouring into other op-ed-generating operations?

The reason may have something to do with the congressman’s own funding: a total of $35,500 since 1997 from the political action committees of the two big teachers unions. That’s far more than the $19,086.88 Ms. Walsh’s group received from the federal government for op-ed writing. Ms. Walsh’s group has since returned the funds in full, which is more than can be said for Mr. Miller, who has kept the campaign lucre from the political action committees of the teachers unions. In her article for the Sun, Ms. Walsh touted the performance of teachers from Teach for America, many of whom lack the traditional education school and certification background of the unionized teachers. The unions have an interest in rules that keep teachers scarce so that wages are bid up.

Of the money flowing on all sides of this policy fight, one of the biggest flows is that into which Mr. Miller’s campaign dipped. Our own conviction is that in the education debate, those arguing for competition and markets have a stronger case than those, like Mr. Miller, who opposed school vouchers for students trapped in the District of Columbia’s failing public school system. And in the end the education policy battle is going to be resolved not by spending on either side but on the merits of ideas.