They also retreated from their earlier willingness to use excess money from the state's rainy day fund to help pay the costs of student enrollment growth - projected to be about 170,000 children during the next two years.

Republicans argued that a severe budget shortfall obligated lawmakers to give school districts more flexibility to make schools more efficient while cutting public schools by at least $4 billion under current funding formulas.

Democrats countered that lawmakers were shortchanging their commitment to public education and picking a fight with educators.

Voting 81-55, the House approved Senate Bill 8, the school reform package. All Democrats voted against the bill. They were joined by 11 Republicans.

The measure will head back to the Senate to consider changes by the House.

The bill allows districts to give teachers and administrators up to six non-instructional days of unpaid leave. School districts also could reduce pay for their professional staffs - something current law does not allow.

Those money-saving measures will allow school districts to preserve jobs, said House Public Education Committee Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands.

"These decisions are best made locally, not micromanaged from Austin," Eissler said. "The state's role is to set standards, provide resources and hold schools accountable, and then get out of the way."

Before opening debate on the school reform package, House Republicans voted to remove a provision in the school funding bill which would have covered the cost of school enrollment growth if the state's rainy day fund expanded beyond the projected $6.5 billion.

'Their true intentions'

House Republicans initially had no objections to the idea, but Thursday, only 12 of 101 Republicans voted to spend about $2 billion to cover growing enrollments if the state's rainy day fund grows beyond projections

"It reveals their true intention about public education - their real hostility toward public ed," said Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, a co-author of the amendment.

The combination of steep budget cuts, teacher furloughs, educator pay cuts, removing teacher seniority protections and making it easier for the education commissioner to waive student class sizes in the elementary grades, delivers a big blow to public education, Farrar and other Democrats said.

"I think the budget crisis has been an excuse to do things to schools that they always wanted to do," Farrar said.

Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, initiated the move to eliminate the rainy day fund contingency amendment. King said he and others believe the state needs to keep a reserve fund of at least 5 percent of the budget.

The state's rainy day fund, formally known as the Economic Stabilization Fund, was created in the 1980s as a savings account to finance public education during hard economic times.

'That's our money'

Rep. Sarah Davis, R-Houston, said she changed her mind about using excess rainy day funds for school enrollment costs because it seemed more fiscally conservative "to wait until we come back next session and see what kind of shape that we are in.

"I'm apprehensive about appropriating future money that doesn't even exist," she said.

Lawmakers chose not to close corporate tax loopholes or to use any of the rainy day fund money to spare public education from cuts, Houston parent Sue Deigaard complained during a news conference after the vote.

"They are choosing not to use the state's savings account. That's our money," Deigaard said. "Why are you not spending that on my kids? Why are you not spending that on all of Texas' children?"

Legislators who voted to cut public education are not entitled to campaign as school supporters, Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, said after the vote.

The cuts to basic education amount to about $400 per student. Lawmakers also cut $1.3 billion from discretionary grants for programs such as full-day pre-K kindergarten.

"Public education in this state is no longer a top priority, and the Legislature should not be allowed to walk away from here claiming it as such," Turner said.

gscharrer@express-news.net