Education Issues in Texas - Essay Example

In the same year, a new law that permanently set aside two million ten million dollars in the five United States’ Indemnity bonds received from the settlement with Texas’ boundary was established.

After America’s civil and reconstruction, Texas introduced a new constitution of 1876 that provided 45 million acres of the public domain for supporting public schools. Moreover, the law directed that income obtained from the new permanent school funds be invested in bonds (Kemerer and Walsh, 56). This law was rewritten in 1884 whereby it created the state superintendent's 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 in other bonds and counties towards increasing income was enacted. After about 100 years, in 1983, Texas voted and approved a constitutional amendment that guaranteed district school bonds by the Permanent School Fund (Preuss, 144). The education commissioners later approved this amendment leading to the 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 the independence of school districts. The Texas school system has been credible since 1885 when its high schools sent selected test papers and examinations 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 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 rural aid supported teachers’ salaries. Additionally, the law improved education provisions 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 which 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 into 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 qualifications 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.