Public Education

Arkansas has had continuing problems with public schools and adequate funding for years. Governors and the legislature have tried various approaches to public education funding that have, according to the Arkansas Supreme Court, come up woefully short of constitutional mandates.

For the sake of simplicity, the Lake View ruling declared that public education in Arkansas is not fair or equal or equitable. If I understand it correctly, the Court ruled that the STATE - not the city - is responsible, according to the Arkansas Constitution, for educating children. And the state is responsible for funding that education.

What it seems to boil down to is that some districts that enjoy a broader tax base can afford better buildings, better equipment, and better teacher pay than others. Rural areas removed from these metropolitan areas do not share in the wealth and cannot offer the children what these larger districts can. The Court has declared that these rural children are entitled to the same educational opportunities, and the state has failed its constitutional mandate to provide it.

Most municipalities like the idea of "local control". They have their school boards and PTA's that provide input as to how the money that is available must be spent. They also (WRONGLY) believe that the revenue that is collected in that county or city is theirs to keep.

It seems to me that if the Constitution reads as the Supreme Court has interpreted it, the state is responsible for disbursement of the monies. This means that if district A can spend $3,000.00 per student and district B can only spend $2,000.00 per student, the state has failed to adequately oversee state public education. If I understand the ruling and the state's response, the state Board of Education should have taken control and divvied up the money so that each district could equally spend $2.500.00 per student.

Is this fair? A city with a large industrial base would say no because the tax revenue that is derived from local business and property taxes is "theirs" since it is within their district. However, what makes it "theirs" beyond the fact that the business chose to locate there? What gives that municipality the "right" to claim that revenue?

A rural district that has no opportunity for this kind of revenue and is far enough removed to make busing to the larger district unreasonable might suggest that this is the only way it can possibly be fair. It is not reasonable, especially with fuel prices as they currently are, to expect parents to drive further or for cash-strapped schools to move more buses farther to get kids to the "good" schools. And the state, according to the Court, cannot neglect the children from these rural areas.

So let it be written; so let it be done. And get the lawyers out of it before we all go broke!!