Lawmakers are working to cut $4 billion from the state's 1,040 public school districts. Giving school administrators flexibility to cut teacher pay and allow up to six days of unpaid leave — which existing law does not allow — will save teacher jobs, Senate Education Chair Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said of school reform measure SB 8.

But hundreds of educators and their supporters attending a Capitol rally were not impressed.

"What they are calling reform should be called a crime," Fort Bend ISD science teacher Randy Colbert said.

"Trying to cut teachers' rights and teachers' pay any time they want to will hurt education. You won't be able to get quality people into teaching that you need. You won't be able to get people to stay in education that you need," the high school teacher said. "And the ones who will be hurt are the students."

Senate Republicans voted for the school reform bill. Democrats opposed it. The House will take up school reform bills later in the week, including a measure to lift the elementary class size cap from 22 students per teacher to 25.

Colbert and others contend the Legislature's action will not sit well with voters next year. Lawmakers are meeting in a special session that Gov. Rick Perry called last week to address public education.

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Voter anger

Colbert said his Republican friends and family are upset that lawmakers are cutting education instead of pulling money out of the state's $6.5 billion rainy day fund, which the Legislature created more than 20 years ago specifically to spare education from cuts during bad economic times.

"They are ready to vote these people out. They want education to be first, not first cut," Colbert said.

Some school administrators, under pressure to cut budgets, are leaning on veteran teachers to retire, he said: "They're bringing in younger, cheaper teachers. It's creating bad morale and a bad atmosphere for teachers."

More than 5,000 Texans also participated in a town hall telephone conference Monday sponsored by the Texas American Federation of Teachers. Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, and Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth participated.

Some callers wanted to know how they could help.

Davis, who killed the school-cutting bill with a filibuster nine days ago at the end of the regular legislative session, urged supporters to rally other parents to get involved.

Many Texans are just beginning to understand the impact of the school cuts, she said.

But Shapiro, the Senate education chairwoman, said school reforms "allow our school districts to get through a temporary problem with a temporary solution. There is nothing in this bill that has to be forever."

Davis and several other Democrats tried unsuccessfully to put a firm, two-year expiration on the school reforms.

Jobs lost

Maria Herlinda Trevino is a Houston educator with two master's degrees, who recently lost her job as a literacy coach at Almeda Elementary School. She said her job became expendable because administrators told her "you don't have a classroom."

Her daughter, a first-year teacher in the Houston ISD, also lost her job. Trevino joined other educators at the noisy Capitol protest, which drew about 200 people. She has not yet lost hope, declaring, "We're in the business of hope. We always hope our students pass all the tests. We always hope our school will be exemplary. We always have hope for children."

She wants Texans to understand "the consequences" of public education cuts. Parents sometimes have trouble handling a couple of their children, she noted. "How can we have 25 children in a classroom? Every child has a special need," Trevino said. "A couple will have discipline problems; a couple will be special ed; a couple will have learning disabilities. How can a teacher be a super-human being?" she wonders.

Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Southside Place, said the public education funding cuts are unwanted but a necessary reaction to hard economic times.

"And we have to live within our means," she said.

Huffman's talks with Houston-area school superintendents convinced her funding cuts — in the 6 percent range for most school districts in the first year — are something the schools can handle.

"Hopefully, in two years, the economy will have turned around, and we can hope for more funding for the schools," she said.

Huffman figures the state could not afford to dip into the rainy day fund because "we have to be prepared for the future. I feel we have done what we can under the political climate and under the circumstances."

gscharrer@express-news.net