Eduaction in Texas - Essay Example

Education in Texas The drive of Texans’ education can be traced from the 1836 when Texas was declared an Independent . On this year of independent, Texas blamed its poor public system of education on their then Mexican government regardless of the boundless resources in the state. Notably, this blame has ever worsened the political ties between Texas and Mexico. In the year 1840, the first Anglo American school law was enacted in Texas. This law facilitated the survey and set aside of four leagues of land per county towards supporting public schools (Blanton 23). In addition, the 1845 state constitution allocated one tenth of the state’s annual tax revenue towards supporting the free public schools in Texas. In the same year, a new law that permanently set aside two million of the ten million dollars in the five United States’ Indemnity bonds received from the settlement with Texas’ boundary was established.
After the America’s civil and reconstruction, Texas introduced a new constitution of 1876 that provided 45 million acres of the public domain towards supporting public schools. Moreover, the law directed that income obtained from the new permanent school funds to be invested in bonds (Kemerer and Walsh 56). This law was rewritten in 1884 whereby it created the state superintendent office and affirmation of the state ad valorem tax. Additionally, in the same year, a law that required funds from permanent schools to be invested to other bonds and county towards increasing the income was enacted. After about 100 years, in the 1983, Texas voted and approved constitution amendment that guaranteed district school bonds by the Permanent School Fund (Preuss 144). The education commissioners later approved this amendment leading to proper issuing of bonds by school districts and the same was guaranteed by the Fund corpus. Currently, the local school districts obtain approximately 765 million dollars as income from the Permanent School Fund.
Numerous additional laws in Texas and its related towns have ever guaranteed Texas freedom in the administration and development of its schools and led to independence of school districts. The Texas school systems have been credible since 1885 when its high schools sent selected test papers examination to the University of Texas (Shirley 102). Since then, the Texas schools have been affiliated with Texas University, and graduates from these schools send their graduates to Texas University without admission examinations (Preuss 37).
The 1911 rural school law established education county boards that permitted the creation of rural, high schools. The laws also consolidated common school districts. This effort made rural or common schools equal to the urban or independent district schools. The additional 1917 laws authorized the state to purchase textbooks and this facilitated education in Texas (Shirley 92). Furthermore, the expansion of the rural aids supported teachers’ salaries. Additionally, the law improved education provision among the state’s ranchers and farmers’ children.
Numerous reforms have helped in elevating the education standards in Texas. Some of these reforms include the 1984 House Bill 72 that increased teachers’ pay rise, channeled more funds to the property-poor school districts, and improved academic achievement among the students. Additionally, there was the 1995 Texas Education System reform turned more education authorities to the local school districts. The 1995 gave the governor the powers to appoint education commissioners (Kemerer and Walsh 271). This reform may affect the administrative performance of schools since the appointment of commissioners is quite political and may undermine some vital professional qualification required of a commissioner.
Alternatively, the governor may use the appointment to reward some of his or her political sympathizers (Maxwell, Crain, and Santos 80). However, the reforms that called for the establishment of a separate educator certification may be avenues for checks and balances in the administrative reforms, in schools in Texas (Blanton 312). Moreover, some of these reforms have increased academic accountability standards in Texas’ schools; thus, should be upheld and made even tougher. For instance, the rigorous graduation and curriculum requirements among tough statewide assessment tests among other academic accountability measures are some reforms to be embraced in Texas.
Works Cited
Blanton, Carlos K. The Strange Career of Bilingual Education in Texas, 1836-1981. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007. Print.
Kemerer, Frank R, and Jim Walsh. The Educators Guide to Texas School Law. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000. Print.
Maxwell, William E, Ernest Crain, and Adolfo Santos. Texas Politics Today. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.
Preuss, Gene B. To Get a Better School System: One Hundred Years of Education Reform in Texas. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009. Print.
Shirley, Dennis. Community Organizing for Urban School Reform. Austin, Tex: Univ. of Texas Press, 1997. Print. Read More