Columbus - Curtis Gossett's 11-year-old son was starting to run with a bad crowd as he neared middle school in a rough section of inner-city Columbus.

Using a state educational voucher program, Gossett sent his sixth-grader to Harvest Preparatory Christian Academy instead of his neighborhood middle school and has seen "a totally different person" emerge in just one school year.

"He was borderline there, but now he's completely turned around," said Gossett. "I know it's because I had the opportunity through EdChoice to send him to the school I wanted to send him to."

With Gov. Ted Strickland vowing to chop the education voucher program used by Gossett's son, the Columbus man was one of dozens of parents and students who gathered Tuesday to advocate for the vouchers at a Columbus news conference.

The voucher program in Strickland's crosshairs provides fewer than 3,000 families of students in low-performing districts across the state with vouchers to attend private school. A separate but similar voucher program in Cleveland serving about 4,000 students is left alone in Strickland's proposed budget.

The theme of the often-emotional anecdotes shared Tuesday: Vouchers give kids a better education in a safer environment than the public schools they deserted.

"Shouldn't every child be able to feel safe in their school environment and confidently come out of their years of basic education feeling they knew something?" asked Bridie Wyrock, who just graduated from St. Joseph Academy in Cleveland. "How could Gov. Strickland rob them of something like that?"

Tuesday's news conference comes as Strickland's proposed budget - which also includes controversial provisions establishing a moratorium on new charter schools and a ban on for-profit charter schools - undergoes hearings in the Ohio House. Strickland, a Democrat, has said he is philosophically opposed to the voucher program, which costs the state $13.8 million a year, because it takes money out of the public school system.

But the program has many prominent Republican supporters, including House Speaker Jon Husted, who met with the voucher parents and students following their news conference.

"Fundamentally, the answer to addressing failing public schools is not to take resources out of public schools," said Keith Dailey, Strickland's spokesman. He added that there is no evidence that the education that students receive is better than what they would have received otherwise.

While the Cleveland voucher program isn't on Strickland's chopping block, the head of a conservative policy think tank that has fought to protect the voucher program believes it will be in time.

"I think the direction is such that, if he had majorities in the House and Senate, that the next step would be to take the Cleveland program away," said David Zanotti, the head of the Ohio Roundtable, which held Tuesday's event.

Strickland could hold the trump card on the voucher program in the form of a line-item veto he could use if Republicans add it into the budget.