Texas Education Agency

The Texas Education Agency (TEA, each letter pronounced separately) is a branch of the state government of Texas in the United States responsible for public education.^[1] The agency is headquartered in the William B. Travis State Office Building in Downtown Austin.^[1][2]

Duties

TEA is responsible for the oversight of public primary and secondary education in the state of Texas, involving both the over 1,000 individual school districts in the state as well as charter schools. However, it does not have any jurisdiction over private or parochial schools (whether or not accredited) nor over home schools.

Although school districts are independent governmental entities, TEA has the authority to oversee a district's operations (either involving an individual school or the entire district) if serious issues arise (such as poor standardized test performance, financial distress, or reported mismanagement). This can be in the form of requiring the district to submit corrective action plans and regular status reports, assigning monitors to oversee operations (including the authority to assign a management board, which essentially replaces and performs the duties of the elected school board), and in extreme cases closure of a school campus or even the entire school district.

The University Interscholastic League, which oversees academic and athletic interscholastic competition, is a separate entity not under TEA oversight.

In addition to primary and secondary education, TEA has oversight duties with respect to driver's education courses (initial permits) and defensive driving courses (used to have a ticket dismissed and/or for lower insurance premiums).

Evolution

On November 7, 2007, Christine Comer resigned as the director of the science curriculum after more than nine years. Comer said her resignation was due to pressure from officials who claimed she had given the appearance of criticizing the teaching of intelligent design.^[3][4]

In 2009, the Board received criticism from more than fifty scientific organizations over an attempt to weaken science standards on evolution.^[5] In addition, Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, who help change the Texas Board from an appointed body to an elected body said the government should "take a look" at the structure of the Board, maybe changing it to a nonpartisan or appointed board if "the board is not getting their job done and they're not pleasing the Legislature or the citizens, then we ought to take a thorough look at what they are doing."^[6] In 2010, it was said to be "drafting its own version of American history", including altering school textbooks to remove what it said was a "left leaning bias" and making changes that are said to have "religious and racial overtones".^[7]

For example, the proposed curriculum would downplay Thomas Jefferson's emphasis on the separation of church and state (outlined in his Letter to Danbury Baptists), and would include a greater emphasis on the importance of religion to the founding fathers. Critics of the proposed changes believe that such a focus on the religious elements of the founding period could cause teachers to omit lessons on history more pertinent to national standards. Proponents of the new changes argue that the religious elements are often downplayed to the point of obscurity due the left-leaning nature of public education. There is no official policy governing requirements in curriculum (beyond meeting state standards in testing results, and the necessary course work for AP classes), meaning that Texas's changes, so long as they remain constitutional, may force Texas students to adopt an altered version of history in order to pass tests.

State Board of Education

TEA is overseen by a 15-member State Board of Education, elected from single-member districts for four years.^[8] TEA is managed by a Commissioner of Education (as of 2007, Robert Scott) who is appointed by the Governor of Texas.^[9] The board devises policies and sets academic standards for Texas public schools as well as oversees the $17.5 billion Permanent School Fund and selects textbooks for Texas' 4.7 million schoolchildren.^[10]

Regions

In order to serve the large number of individual school districts and charter schools in Texas, TEA is divided into 20 regions, each containing an Educational Service Center (ESC, sometimes called Regional Service Center or RSC). Below are the districts, the cities in which the ESC office is located, and the counties served (districts which overlap counties are served by the ESC for the county in which the district's administrative office is located):

• Region 1, Edinburg--Cameron, Hidalgo, Jim Hogg, Starr, Webb, Willacy, and Zapata
• Region 2, Corpus Christi--Aransas, Bee, Brooks, Duval, Jim Wells, Kenedy, Kleberg, Live Oak, McMullen, Nueces, and San Patricio
• Region 3, Victoria--Calhoun, Colorado, DeWitt, Goliad, Jackson, Karnes, Lavaca, Matagorda, Refugio, Victoria, and Wharton
• Region 4, Houston--Brazoria, Chambers, Fort Bend, Galveston (excluding High Island, which is served by Region 5), Harris, Liberty, and Waller
• Region 5, Beaumont--Galveston (High Island district only; all others are served by Region 4), Hardin, Jasper, Jefferson, Newton, Orange, and Tyler
• Region 6, Huntsville--Austin, Brazos, Burleson, Grimes, Houston, Leon, Madison, Milam, Montgomery, Polk, Robertson, San Jacinto, Trinity, Walker, and Washington
• Region 7, Kilgore--Anderson, Angelina, Cherokee, Gregg, Harrison, Henderson, Nacogdoches, Panola, Rains, Rusk, Sabine, San Augustine, Shelby, Smith, Upshur, Van Zandt (excluding Canton and Wills Point districts, which are served by Region 10), and Wood
• Region 8, Mount Pleasant--Bowie, Camp, Cass, Delta, Franklin, Hopkins, Lamar, Marion, Morris, Red River, and Titus
• Region 9, Wichita Falls--Archer, Baylor, Clay, Foard, Hardeman, Jack, Knox, Montague, Throckmorton, Wichita, Wilbarger, and Young
• Region 10, Richardson--Collin, Dallas, Ellis, Fannin, Grayson, Hunt, Kaufman, Rockwall, and Van Zandt (Canton and Wills Point districts only; all others are served by Region 7)
• Region 11, Fort Worth--Cooke, Denton, Erath, Hood, Johnson, Parker, Palo Pinto, Somervell, Tarrant, and Wise
• Region 12, Waco--Bell, Bosque, Coryell, Falls, Freestone, Hamilton, Hill, Lampasas, Limestone, McLennan, Mills, and Navarro
• Region 13, Austin--Bastrop, Blanco, Burnet, Caldwell, Comal, Fayette, Gillespie, Gonzales, Guadalupe, Hays, Kendall, Lee, Llano, Milam, Travis, and Williamson
• Region 14, Abilene--Callahan, Comanche, Eastland, Fisher, Haskell, Jones, Mitchell, Nolan, Scurry, Shackelford, Stephens, Stonewall, and Taylor
• Region 15, San Angelo--Brown, Coke, Coleman, Concho, Crockett, Edwards, Irion, Kimble, Mason, McCulloch, Menard, Runnels, San Saba, Schleicher, Sterling, Sutton, Tom Green, and Val Verde
• Region 16, Amarillo--Armstrong, Briscoe, Carson, Castro, Childress, Collingsworth, Dallam, Deaf Smith, Donley, Gray, Hall, Hansford, Hartley, Hemphill, Hutchinson, Lipscomb, Moore, Ochiltree, Oldham, Parmer, Potter, Randall, Roberts, Sherman, Swisher, and Wheeler
• Region 17, Lubbock--Bailey, Borden, Cochran, Cottle, Crosby, Dawson, Dickens, Floyd, Gaines, Garza, Hale, Hockley, Kent, King, Lamb, Lubbock, Lynn, Motley, Terry, and Yoakum.
• Region 18, Midland--Andrews, Brewster, Crane, Culberson, Ector, Glasscock, Howard, Jeff Davis, Loving, Martin, Midland, Pecos, Presidio, Reagan, Reeves, Terrell, Upton, Ward, and Winkler
• Region 19, El Paso--El Paso and Hudspeth
• Region 20, San Antonio--Atascosa, Bandera, Bexar, Dimmit, Frio, Kendall, Kerr, Kinney, La Salle, Maverick, Medina, Real, Uvalde, Wilson, and Zavala

The ESC's serve as a liaison between the districts and TEA headquarters, providing support to the districts such as conducting workshops and technical assistance. The ESC's do not have any regulatory authority to monitor the districts (this is reserved for TEA headquarters).

School and District Accountability

Education Performance Ranking

TEA ranks schools and districts using four criteria. The criteria are the same for schools and districts. According to the Texas Education Agency, the number of state schools and districts receiving the top ratings of "exemplary" and "recognized" increased from 2,213 in 2005 to 3,380 in 2006.^[11]

Gold Performance Acknowledgements

In addition to the state ranking, districts and schools can be awarded additional commendations (referred to as Gold Performance Acknowledgements) for other noteworthy accomplishments not included in the ranking system.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Welcome to the Texas Education Agency." Texas Education Agency. Accessed August 30, 2008.
2. ^ "Week of April 16 - 20, 2001." Railroad Commission of Texas. Accessed August 30, 2008.
3. ^ "Evolution Debate Led to Ouster, Official Says". New York Times. November 30, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/us/30resign.html?. Retrieved 2007-11-30.
4. ^ "State science curriculum director resigns". Austin American-Statesman. November 29, 2007. http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/11/29/1129science.html. Retrieved 2007-11-30.
5. ^ "Texas needs to get it right". National Center for Science Education. March 2009. http://ncse.com/news/2009/03/texas-needs-to-get-it-right-004695. Retrieved 2009-03-30.
6. ^ "Straus: Look at changing state school board elections--maybe more". Star-Telegram. March 27, 2009. http://startelegram.typepad.com/politex/2009/03/straus-look-at-changing-state-school-board-electionsmaybe-more.html. Retrieved 2009-03-30.
7. ^ Halkett, Kimberly. Texas looks to rewrite history. Al Jazeera. 9 April 2010.
8. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p} "SBOE Officers, Committees, and Members". Texas Education Agency. 2009. http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=3803. Retrieved 2009-04-24.
9. ^ "Commissioner of Education". Texas Education Agency. 2009. http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/sboe/commissioner.html. Retrieved 2009-04-24.
10. ^ "End poor guidance of Texas education". Austin American-Statesman. April 24, 2009. http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/04/24/0424senate_edit.html. Retrieved 2009-04-24.
11. ^ "Schools improve across the state". The Daily Texan. 3 August 2006. http://www.dailytexanonline.com/media/storage/paper410/news/2006/08/03/TopStories/Schools.Improve.Across.The.State-2143180.shtml?norewrite200608032103&sourcedomain=www.dailytexanonline.com. Retrieved 2006-08-03.

External links

• Texas Education Agency
• Texas Education Agency from the Handbook of Texas Online

Categories: Education in Texas | State agencies of Texas | State departments of education of the United States | Texas Education Agency