History of education in Texas

The history of education in Texas covers public and private schooling at the elementary, secondary and higher levels from the colonial era to the present.

In breaking away from Mexico in 1836, the grievances in the Declaration of Independence complained of the failure of the Mexican government "to establish any public system of education, although possessed of almost boundless resources." Texans learned that it would take many decades to build a public school system. In the meantime, they relied on tutors, private religious schools, and ad-hoc arrangements whereby a few neighbors would hire a teacher, and provide room and boarding and a room to teach in. State funding was promised time and again and rarely materialized.

Religion was a powerful force, with Baptists, Methodists, Catholics and smaller denominations setting up colleges in which most students were enrolled in from grades 1 to 12, with a minority in higher education. That minority grew larger in time until established private colleges flourished in the 20th century.

Washington entered the scene during Reconstruction, operating schools for the freed slaves. Outside philanthropists kept up schools for African Americans into the 20th century. After 1875, a statewide plan was in operation for towns and most rural areas. By 1900, the nationwide Progressive era inspired Texas reformers to modernize education, train teachers, and consolidate the surrounding one-room schools into a good school in the county seat, usually with a high school. Rural Texas resisted the reformers but they could not resist the strong forces of urbanization and industrialization. After 1947 the rural schools were consolidated. In the 1960s the legal segregation of Blacks and Hispanics ended. In the 1980s, upgrading performance in tests became a statewide priority, and the methods promoted in Texas became a national model.