Page:DuPree v. Alma School District No. 30, 279 Ark. 340 (1983).pdf/14

Rh The legislature will have the same difficulties in setting a new formula as it has had in dealing with the one rejected. Some school districts will want special consideration, whether they are small, medium, large, from an urban or rural area. If the funds are distributed equally, some districts may lose funds. This immediately raises the question of what kind of education should be provided. The appellants point to The Quality Education Act of 1969 (Ark. Stat. Ann. §§ 80-4601 — 4615) which is supposed to insure that the children of Arkansas receive a quality education. The Act is, of course, meaningless so far as quality is concerned. Any school district that can only comply with that Act is probably not offering its students a decent education opportunity as required by ARK. CONST. art. 14, § 1. The Act was probably passed so that small districts would not have to consolidate. In addition to the problems and questions to be resolved, if these were not enough, there looms in the shadows ARK. CONST. amend. 59 passed in 1980. It deprived school districis of valuably needed tax dollars by granting specific tax favors to certain property owners and freezing to an extent tax revenue. Its validity has never been challenged in court.

It is my respectful judgment that this court had no intention of intervening in a legislative or executive matter. Nor do we intend to supervise their work and if the General Assembly takes this opportunity to correct years of habit and starts afresh providing a truly equal formula for dispensing state aid, then there will be no need for this court to speak on this matter again. We are not a wealthy state but we have the means to provide to every student, both at the secondary and higher level, a decent opportunity for an education. But our assets cannot be squandered by political decisions or unnecessary compromise.

J I. P, Justice, concurring. I concur with the majority with the exception that I insist that the right to a free public education is fundamental. Article 14, sec. 1 of the Arkansas Constitution of 1874 clearly mandates the state to provide a free school system to safeguard liberty and provide a bulwark for free and good government. Not to hold that such an education is fundamental is to chip away at the