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Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
There are 181 colleges, universities and dozens of other institutions engaged in the research and development of Texas. Most public universities are members of six different systems: University of Houston, University of North Texas, University of Texas, Texas A&M University, Texas State University, and Texas Tech University. The University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, University of Houston, and University of North Texas are Texas's four largest comprehensive doctoral degree-granting institutions with a combined enrollment of over 165,000.
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The state also has many private universities. Rice University—one of the country’s leading teaching and research universities—ranked the 17th-best university overall in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Additionally, Southwestern University—the oldest university in the state—was chartered by the Republic of Texas.
The state's public school systems are administered by the Texas Education Agency (TEA). Texas has over 1,000 school districts—all but one of the school districts in Texas are separate from any form of municipal government. School districts may (and often do) cross city and county boundaries—an exception to this rule is Stafford Municipal School District. School districts have the power to tax their residents and to assert eminent domain over privately owned property. |
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Texas also has numerous private schools of all types. The TEA has no authority over private school operations; private schools may or may not be accredited, and achievement tests are not required for private school graduating seniors. Many private schools obtain accreditation and perform achievement tests to show parents the school's interest in educational performance.
The state has some of the fewest restrictions on homeschooling. Neither TEA nor the local school district has authority to regulate home school activities. There is no minimum number of days in a year, or hours in a day, that must be met, and achievement tests are not required for home school graduating seniors. The validity of home schooling was challenged in Texas, but a landmark case, Leeper v. Arlington ISD, ruled that home schooling was legal and that the state had little authority to regulate the practice. |
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