Thousands of students in low-performing public schools across Ohio could be eligible in two years to receive scholarships for private schools as part a tuition voucher program approved by Gov. Bob Taft on Thursday.

Taft included the vouchers in his two-year budget bill. By September, the Ohio Department of Education must begin preparations for the program, which would provide up to 14,000 scholarships to students in grades K-12 beginning in the 2006-07 school year. The vouchers would be for up to $4,250 for students in grades K-8 or up to $5,000 for grades 9-12. For eligibility, students would have to take state achievement tests.

Students would qualify for vouchers to a participating private school if they attend a traditional public school or charter school that received the state's worst performance rating - academic emergency - for three years in a row, according to the Ohio Legislative Service Commission.

Last year, 34 schools in Hamilton County and three in Butler County were rated in "academic emergency." No schools in Warren or Clermont counties got those ratings.

While some parents and private school advocates welcome the vouchers, public school supporters say the program could mean a bigger drain on districts such as Cincinnati Public Schools, which suffer from dwindling enrollment and loss of state funds.

"The whole program is thoughtless and irresponsible," said Cincinnati school board member Jack Gilligan, a former Ohio governor. "What they are doing is dishing out money all over the place for anyone who wants to leave the public school system. But they are not doing anything to improve the public schools."

The Cincinnati district has lost about 26 percent of its enrollment in the last decade, dropping from 50,314 students in the 1994-95 school year to 36,818 last year.

Taft created the program to offer educational options to students at poor-performing public schools and to encourage those schools to improve before the vouchers are implemented, said spokesman Mark Rickel.

The voucher plan expands one that has operated in Cleveland for nine years, creating a statewide system. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 upheld the constitutionality of the Cleveland program.

The Ohio Department of Education will have a better idea in August of which students would eligible for the vouchers because schools receive state ratings that month, said spokesman J.C. Benton. Schools that have been in academic emergency for three years would have a year to improve before their students are eligible for the vouchers.

Mary Lou Smith, principal of St. Joseph School in the West End, said the vouchers could help parents who can't afford private school tuition. St. Joseph's tuition is $3,800 per child next year.

"I am excited that parents will have a choice," she said. "Low-income families should not be penalized or have barriers placed in front of them to a quality education."

About 95 percent of St. Joseph's students qualify for free- or reduced-priced lunches.

Most students already receive scholarships through the Catholic Inner-City Schools Education Fund, a consortium of schools subsidized by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.

Those subsidies are up to $2,000 per student, she said.

Starlett Tolbert, who has one child in St. Joseph, another at Seton High School and a third who just graduated from Elder High School, said private school tuition has been a struggle. Tolbert, a Price Hill resident who works as a school cook manager, benefited from the Catholic Inner-City Schools Education Fund.

She said she hopes more parents will be able to afford private education through the voucher program.

"A lot of kids don't have the opportunities to go to a Catholic high school" because of the cost, she said. "Every little bit helps."

Paul Zook, a St. Xavier High School spokesman, said vouchers also could help parents hoping to send students to the Finneytown school, where tuition is $8,995.

"We want kids who can handle the program even if they can't pay," he said. "Tuition assistance has already been a major concern so that we maintain a socio-economic mix at the school. If the voucher program would help students who can handle the program get into St. Xavier High School, that would be fine."