Texas (U.S. state)

Texas was an independent republic when it voted to join the United States of America as the the 28th state, entering officially on December 29, 1845. The capital is located in Austin. The state motto is "Friendship" and its nickname is the "Lone Star State," a reference to its flag when it was independent. The largest metropolitan areas are Houston, Dallas-Fort-Worth, and San Antonio. The population of 22.9 in 2006 makes Texas second to California; it contains 12 million minorities (8.4 million Hispanics, .882 million blacks, xx million Asians), as well as 11.4 million non-Hispanic whites.

History

Six national flags have flown over Texas. Spain, France (which had a small brief settlement), Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the Confederate States of America, and the United States of America have all at one time had a presence in different parts of Texas.

Spain

1716-1821

Republic of Texas

March 2, 1836 - December 29, 1845

Texas in 1835

Texas leaders gathered at Washington-on-the-Brazos to sign the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836. Four days later the Alamo fell after a 13 day siege by Mexican troops led by Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna. The massacre of all the defenders gave rise to the rallying call "Remember the Alamo". Santa Anna's Mexican troops were defeated on April 21 at the Battle of San Jacinto near present-day Houston.

Confederate States of America

March 2, 1861-March 15, 1865

United States of America

December 29, 1845-March 2, 1861 and March 15, 1865-present

Natural Environment

The natural environment of Texas is as diverse as its history. The natural areas of Texas can be described in many ways including the following ten descriptive names: the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Prairies and Marshes, the East Texas Pineywoods, the Post Oak Savannah (stretching from the Oklahoma border down through Central Texas), the Blackland Prairies (paralleling the Post Oak Savannah), the North Texas Cross Timbers and Prairies, the North Texas/Texas Panhandle Rolling Plains, the Texas Panhandle/West Texas High Plains, the West Texas Trans-Pecos (including the mountains of Texas), the Central/Western Texas Edwards Plateau, and the South Texas Plains.

Education

Education in Texas has always (and still is) an important priority. The Texas Declaration of Independence from Mexico included the following grievance against the government of Mexico pertaining to education:

It has failed to establish any public system of education, although possessed of almost boundless resources, (the public domain,) and although it is an axiom in political science, that unless a people are educated and enlightened, it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty, or the capacity for self government.

Even today Texas is in the forefront of education in the country as the No Child Left Behind( NCLB) Act is being implemented. The administration of George W. Bush used Texas as a model for many of the reforms in the NCLB Act because of his previous experiences as governor of Texas.

In 2006 Texas ranked #25 out of 50 states on a composite index of public education. Texas ranks:

• #49 in verbal SAT scores in the nation (493) and #46 in average math SAT scores (502).
• #36 in the nation in high school graduation rates (68%).
• #33 in the nation in teacher salaries. Teacher salaries in Texas are not keeping pace with the national average. The gains realized from the last state-funded across-the-board pay raise authorized in 1999, which moved the ranking from 33 to as high as 26th in the nation, have disappeared over the last five years.
• Texas was the only state in the nation to cut average per pupil expenditures in fiscal year 2005, resulting in a ranking of #40 nationally; down from #25 in fiscal year 1999.
• #6 in the nation in student growth. The general student population in Texas public schools grew by 11.1% between school years 1999 and 2005, with the largest percent of growth seen among low income and minority children.

Public Education

The Texas public education system consists of 1,033 independent and common school districts. There are an additional 190 charter school districts. Public school enrollment has continued to increase at a rapid pace. In the 2000-2001 school year, public school enrollment was at 4,059,619 students. By the 2006-2007 school year, the public school enrollment had increased by over 500,000 students to a mark of 4,594,942 students.

Higher Education

The University of Texas System is one of the largest higher education systems in the nation. The University of Texas at Austin is the largest institution in the UT System.

Government

The current Governor of Texas is Republican Rick Perry. Perry was Lieutenant Governor in 2000 when George W. Bush resigned as Governor to become the 43rd President of the United States of America. Two U.S. Senators representing Texas are Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, both Republicans.

Politics

After the American Civil War and before the Civil Rights movement, Texas was a part of the Solid South that had always voted for the Democratic nominees. In the Civil Rights movement of the mid-20th century, Texan Democrats such as Barbara Jordan and President Lyndon B. Johnson played a significant role in the domestic reform policies in that period. Later, however, along with the rest of Southern United States, Texas moved to right and increasingly voted for the Republican Party. The last Democrat to win a statewide office, Governor Ann Richards, was defeated by George W. Bush in 1994. In recent years Texas has become a stronghold for Republicans and a national bastion of economic conservatism.

Further reading

• The Handbook of Texas Online - Published by the Texas State Historical Association thousands of scholarly articles on every aspect of Texas history

References

Citations