The Texas Education Agency believes the public has a right to know how its public schools are doing. Thanks to a decision in the 1980s to create the Public Education Information Management System, known as PEIMS, Texas has one of the largest education data bases in the world. It provides a treasure trove of information for researchers, parents and the public at large to mine and learn about the workings of 1,200 districts and charters, as well as TEA. That information and other data is used to create a number of reports that provide information about a variety of topics, such as student performance, spending and implementation of legislation.