many cross city boundaries. School districts have the power to tax their residents and to assert eminent domain over privately owned property. Due to court-mandated equitable school financing for school districts, the state has a tax redistribution system called the "Robin Hood plan". This plan transfers property tax revenue from wealthy school districts to poor ones. The TEA has no authority over private or home school activities. Students in Texas take the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) in primary and secondary school. STAAR assess students' attainment of reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies skills required under Texas education standards and the No Child Left Behind Act. The test replaced the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test in the 2011–2012 school year. Generally prohibited in the West at large, school corporal punishment is not unusual in the more conservative, rural areas of the state, with 28,569 public school students paddled at least one time, according to government data for the 2011–2012 school year. The rate of school corporal punishment in Texas is surpassed only by Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas. Higher education The state's two most widely recognized flagship universities are The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University, ranked as the 21st and 41st best universities in the nation according to 2020's latest Center for World University Rankings report, respectively. Some observers also include the University of Houston and Texas Tech University as tier one flagships alongside UT Austin and A&M. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) ranks the state's public universities into three distinct tiers: National Research Universities (Tier 1) The University of Texas at Austin Texas A&M University Texas Tech University University of Houston The University of Texas at Arlington The University of Texas at Dallas The University of North Texas The University of Texas at El Paso Emerging Research Universities (Tier 2) The University of Texas at San Antonio Texas State University Comprehensive Universities (Tier 3) All other public universities (25 in total) Texas's alternative affirmative action plan, Texas House Bill 588, guarantees Texas students who graduated in the percent of their high school class automatic admission to state-funded universities. This does not apply to The University of Texas at Austin, which automatically admits Texas students who graduated in the percent of their high school class. The bill encourages demographic diversity while attempting to avoid problems stemming from the