SACRAMENTO - A 70-mile march from San Pablo to the state Capitol to fight for more education funding ended Friday with vows of help from East Bay lawmakers but silence from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The marchers from the West Contra Costa school district endured eight days of steep hills, painful blisters, hot sun and angry drivers to deliver their message to state lawmakers.

About 100 students, teachers, parents and activists left San Pablo more than a week ago. They lost some companions and gained others before more than 250 circled the Capitol on the last stretch of their trek, shouting, "Arnold, you fool, why don't you fund our schools?"

Holding a banner in front of the pack, 15-year-old Tania Gutierrez said she was tired but happy she made it.

"I hope the governor realizes he's making a big mistake, and he gives us our right to be educated," she said.

Outside the Capitol, the group rallied for more state money for schools, an end to disparities in education funding and forgiveness of a 1991 loan that saved the West Contra Costa district from bankruptcy. State senators Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, and Don Perata, D-Oakland, and Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, pledged to pressure other state lawmakers for relief from, if not forgiveness of, the district's $16.8 million outstanding balance on the loan.

The West Contra Costa district has cut librarians, elementary-school music, sports and 201 jobs to close a $16.5 million gap in next year's budget.

Perata said districts such as West Contra Costa and Oakland get into fiscal trouble because they serve challenging populations, yet receive the same amount of funding as more affluent communities.

"Unless that debt burden is lifted from your shoulders, you will never be equal," Perata told the marchers at the rally. "You will never be able to compete."

No lawmakers came to hear the group testify about the district's plight in a legislative hearing room after the rally. But marchers made impassioned pleas for more funding anyway.

Roberto Torres, a 15-year-old sophomore at Richmond High, questioned why some students in the state get a better education than others. He gave up a week of spring break with his family to ask for something all students already should have, he said.

"It hurts me to see no one in power was here," Torres said. "These people couldn't give one minute of their time to hear us out."

The governor never showed. But activist Cesar Cruz was allowed to speak with the governor's director of constituent affairs inside the governor's office. The crowd outside in the hallway chanted, "We want Arnold" and "No Arnold. No peace." A dozen California Highway Patrol officers and a dog guarded the door.

Cruz said the governor's staff will send a written response to the group's demands by Wednesday. The group's next protest may be a hunger strike, Cruz said.

It is not clear how the state would relieve West Contra Costa's debt, Perata said after the rally. But it might be through an incentive program in which for every dollar or two the district pays back, a dollar of the loan would be forgiven. The district has so far kept up with its annual payments of $1.86 million.

Hancock is pushing for the loan's interest rate to be reduced from 5.7 percent to about 1.5 percent, saving the district $650,000 a year, according to her chief of staff, Hans Hemann. Oakland's interest rate on the bailout loan it took out last year is 1.77 percent.

In 2000, the district lobbied for debt relief and did receive $4 million over five years in restitution for being excluded from a state construction program.

The money was hard-won, because many lawmakers objected to setting a precedent of forgiveness for other districts that receive state loans.

Alvin Fields, a 16-year-old at Kennedy High in Richmond who walked the entire 70 miles, said the state should forgive the district's loan, so the money could go back to the schools. Kennedy students are just trying to survive and learn, he said.

"The governor should hear all of this," he said. "We shouldn't have to fight for our education."