After five hours of emotional House floor debate, legislation that would have allowed limited state-funded private school vouchers collapsed Monday night with little hope of resurrection.

The voucher proposal would have had the state pay for some urban public school students to attend private school. The voucher plan, which supporters have been pushing since the early 1990s when President Bush was governor, looks to be dead for the next two years.

"I don't know at this late stage of the session there is a great deal of hope" for passing vouchers, said Rep. Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, the bill's sponsor.

After several votes that showed slim support for the measure, Grusendorf attempted to postpone further debate until Tuesday, the last day the House can pass bills. The legislative session ends May 30.

Before Grusendorf could save his bill, one of seven technical errors in the bill pointed out by Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, killed it.

It was already struggling. Before debate ended, lawmakers had approved amendments that significantly weakened the voucher pilot project.

The future of the Texas Education Agency reauthorization bill to which the voucher measure was attached was precarious even before House debate began. The Senate sponsor of the legislation had vowed to block the legislation's passage rather than accept the voucher pilot program.

The measure would have provided state scholarships to attend private schools for at-risk students in at least seven school districts in five urban counties.

A change made on the floor would have allowed vouchers only for students to transfer from one public school to another, not to private schools.

Originally, the plans was to provide vouchers only in urban school districts of Austin, Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.

One change proposed by Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, replaced the Fort Worth and Dallas school districts with Irving and Arlington. The districts are the hometowns of the two most vocal voucher supporters, Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, R-Irving, and Grusendorf.

Proponents of the voucher pilot program argued it would give Texas parents a choice about their children's education and would allow the state to determine whether increased competition could improve education in Texas.

"We can put in place choice and at the same time improve our public schools," Grusendorf said.

Harper-Brown said the voucher plan was about giving parents the ability to get their students out of failing urban schools.

Critics said it would siphon money from already ailing Texas schools. Many lawmakers who opposed the measure wore bright red stop sign-shaped pins emblazoned with "STOP VOUCHERS".

"This is a proposal that would drain millions of dollars from public school budgets at a time when we can't even come up with enough money to fund textbooks we've already promised to the kids," said Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston.

In a display of the divisiveness of the issue, Republican House Speaker Tom Craddick cast several votes to keep the issue alive. Craddick rarely votes, but has said he supports a trial program for school vouchers.

The bill's Senate sponsor, Sen. Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, said without the reauthorization bill, the education agency's functions will continue. But the reauthorization review would have to be repeated for the 2007 legislative session. It would also delay implementation of reform measures included in the bill that would tighten standards for charter schools and improve accountability for public schools.

"It's kind of a waste of resources when you have to go through that again," Jackson said.