Cincinnati (AP) -- An advocacy group says fewer students in low-ranking ohio public schools qualify for free tuition vouchers to attend private schools next fall.
School Choice Ohio says about 80,000 students qualify, compared with about 90,000 a year ago.
The Ohio Department of Education says the decline in eligibility indicates that some of Ohio's worst-scoring public schools are improving.
Scholarship vouchers are available to students at schools that earned either of the state's two lowest performance ratings in two of the past three years.
This year, the number of schools in those categories fell from 325 to 296.
About 10,000 students received the vouchers in the current school year.
(Copyright 2009 by the Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
