A week before the application deadline for the second year of Ohio's EdChoice school voucher program, a fight is brewing in Columbus to keep school vouchers alive in Ohio.

Gov. Ted Strickland wants to eliminate the year-old voucher program before the start of the next school year. He said that would save the state $13.8 million a year, which could be spent on public schools.

But dozens of parents and students who receive vouchers traveled to Columbus this week and last to testify and hold news conferences defending the program.

"We don't want to lose these vouchers," said Chanda Heard, a Madisonville mother whose three children attend Christ Emmanuel Christian Academy in East Walnut Hills.

"You feed somebody filet mignon for an entire year and now you tell them theyhave to go back to eating Spam? I just can't see my kids going back into Cincinnati Public."

The vouchers, called Ohio EdChoice Scholarships, go to students who attend or would attend public schools that have received the state's lowest academic ratings - Academic Watch or Academic Emergency - for at least two of the last three years.

A total of 2,829 students statewide have vouchers, including 725 in Cincinnati, for the current school year, although 14,000 vouchers are available. The vouchers pay for private-school tuition up to $4,250 a year for grades K-8 and $5,000 a year for high school or the actual tuition, whichever is less.

Applications are being accepted for new vouchers for next year, even though the program could end. The state must continue processing applications as long as the program exists, said J.C. Benton, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Education.

So far for next year, 61 Cincinnati Public students, 19 charter school students and 246 future kindergartners have applied for vouchers, said Dawn Grady, district spokeswoman. More than 11,500 Cincinnati Public students in 28 schools are eligible for the state aid, based on their schools' performance.

It's unclear how successful the voucher program has been in its first year.

More than 300 students across Ohio - 10 percent of the recipients - left the program this year, including 60 students who have returned to Cincinnati Public Schools. Whether the program has helped students academically is unproven because voucher students have not taken statewide achievement tests, which are set to begin April 30.

Even without test results, Strickland said he knows that the voucher program is wrong.

"It's undemocratic," he said, and it signals an abandonment of the public school system. Vouchers "represent the use of public tax dollars without any public oversight, without the public having the ability, through their elected representatives, to have any influence over (school) hiring, firing, curriculum, or discipline procedures. It's an attempt to help a few students shine, when I think our goal should be to improve our public schools so that every student would have a high-quality education."

Strickland does not propose eliminating Cleveland's voucher program, a separate 10-year-old program that serves about 4,000 students and was the focus of the U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld vouchers. Strickland said Cleveland's vouchers are based on family income and are more established, while EdChoice is in its infancy and is easier to cut.

But not without a fight.

A House finance subcommittee Thursday concluded five days of public testimony about vouchers and other education issues in Strickland's budget proposal. About 130 people spoke in the past three days, most of them in favor of vouchers and other forms of school choice such as charter schools and online schools.

Some state lawmakers have said they're considering removing the language from Strickland's budget proposal that would ax vouchers. Staff members of lawmakers said Strickland can't veto their action, though he can still veto the entire budget bill after the General Assembly makes changes.

House Speaker Jon A. Husted, R-Kettering, has said he will keep fighting to save vouchers.

"We have a caucus of 53 Republicans. I believe the majority of our members would be supportive of the (voucher) program," Karen Tabor, Husted's spokeswoman, said.

Other lawmakers say they're trying to negotiate with Strickland, who might be willing to bend if other aspects of his budget are endangered.

"I'm still optimistic," state Senate President Bill Harris, R-Ashland, said. "I hope we can have a compromise, and we don't have a standoff. That doesn't help anybody."

Several Cincinnati parents said EdChoice should not be cut, but expanded to include more families.

Lillie Snow said she pulled her fourth-grader, Diamond, out of Mount Airy elementary last year because Diamond was struggling to understand math but didn't appear to get much individual attention. Now, Diamond is in a class of only four or five students at Christ Emmanuel, Snow said, and gets more attention and more challenging work.

"They're doing PowerPoint presentations," Snow said. "For Black History Month, they had to write an article on a person, and they had to go to the library to do research and have five different references. I don't understand how (Strickland) can say this program doesn't work when I know for a fact that the program does work."

Snow, a phlebotomist, said she'll take a second job to pay for Diamond's tuition if the vouchers go.

Ganene Clark, of College Hill, said her son Anthony got into fights at public school, and she had to drive him to school sometimes to avoid bullies. Last year, a boy threatened him with a pipe, she said.

Now, he's not being bullied at Central Baptist Academy in Finneytown, and his grades have improved from D's and F's to a C average, she said.

"It hurts me that now that I have found somewhere where he can stay, they're going to take away the funding," said Clark, a home day-care provider.

The loss of vouchers could also hurt some private schools.

At the Marva Collins schools in Roselawn and Silverton, almost half of the 110 students are EdChoice scholarship recipients. School founder Cleaster Mims said she'll rebuild if she loses half her students, but she says Strickland has an unrealistic picture of the public schools students would return to.

"He has no clue," she said. "What parent would want to send their child, if they had an option, to where that child had to walk through metal detectors every day?"