Bill > HB104

This bill abolishes the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), an agency responsible for overseeing higher education in Texas, and transfers its functions and responsibilities to the Texas Education Agency (TEA), which currently oversees public education from pre-kindergarten through high school. The bill also transfers certain statutorily assigned functions of the State Board of Education (SBOE) to the TEA. This consolidation aims to streamline educational oversight and administration in Texas by centralizing these functions within a single agency. The bill makes numerous amendments to existing education laws to reflect this restructuring, removing references to the abolished THECB and SBOE in many contexts and replacing them with references to the TEA or the Commissioner of Education. This includes changes to how educational programs are planned and coordinated, how student records are managed, how textbooks are adopted and distributed, how educator certification rules are approved, and how various educational initiatives and funding are administered. The bill also clarifies that the TEA, under the Commissioner of Education, will now be the primary state agency responsible for higher education policy and oversight, in addition to its existing responsibilities for K-12 education.