Trace the development of the governmental principle of local control in the Texas public school system. How has local control impacted Texas public education today?

What will be an ideal response?

An ideal response will:
1. Explain that, under the Constitution of Coahuila y Tejas, the Mexican government failed to sufficiently fund public education, and the concept of local control over school development was firmly established during the 1820s in Texas. The government's failure to fund public education was one reason the Texas revolution of 1836 took place.
2. Explain that, after Texas was annexed by the United States in 1845, the state's first constitution established a permanent fund for the support of public schools.
3. Note that a centralized, statewide system of public schools was first established under the Constitution of Reconstruction in 1869, which was imposed by Radical Reconstructionists against the will of most Texans.
4. Explain that, when the current Texas Constitution was written in 1876, the framers replaced centralized state government, including the public school system, with more local control.
5. Explain that, due to local control over schools, decentralization and wide disparities in local tax bases have produced an inequitable public education system in Texas.