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. The agency is headquartered in the William B. Travis State Office Building in Downtown Austin.

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).

See also: List of school districts in Texas

State Board of Education

TEA is overseen by a 15-member State Board of Education, elected from single-member districts for four years. TEA is managed by a Commissioner of Education (as of 2007, Robert Scott) who is appointed by the Governor of Texas. 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.

Name	District	Political Party	Role
Rene Nuñez	District 1	Democrat
Mary Helen Berlanga	District 2	Democrat
Rick Agosto	District 3	Democrat
Lawrence A. Allen, Jr.	District 4	Democrat
Ken Mercer	District 5	Republican	Vice Chair
Terri Leo	District 6	Republican
David Bradley	District 7	Republican
Barbara Cargill	District 8	Republican
Don McLeroy	District 9	Republican
Cynthia Noland Dunbar	District 10	Republican
Patricia Hardy	District 11	Republican
Geraldine Miller	District 12	Republican
Mavis B. Knight	District 13	Democrat
Gail Lowe	District 14	Republican	Chair
Bob Craig	District 15	Republican

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).

Controversy

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.

In 2009, the Board received criticism from more than fifty scientific organizations over an attempt to weaken science standards on evolution. 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."

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.

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. " Welcome to the Texas Education Agency." Texas Education Agency. Accessed August 30, 2008.
2. " Welcome to the Texas Education Agency." Texas Education Agency. Accessed August 30, 2008.
3. " Week of April 16 - 20, 2001." Railroad Commission of Texas. Accessed August 30, 2008.

External links

• Texas Education Agency