SANTIAGO, Chile — Ruling-party and opposition lawmakers struck a deal Tuesday on levying up to $1 billion in taxes to fund education reform, a hot-button issue in Chile that has stirred major protests.

Leaders of a student protest movement immediately rejected the deal as insufficient.

The planned taxes would hit wealthier Chileans harder, including a provision to boost corporate taxes from 17 to 20 percent.

For over a year, Chilean students have rallied in the streets, calling for reform to the South American nation's education system, considered expensive, inefficient, and inequitable.

Public education in Chile suffered from sharp cuts in funding during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, leaving a system that favors expensive private schools that are out of the reach of the poor.