LakeViewCourt

"Conservatives Today, Thinking Right"

This page will reflect the direct influence of the Arkansas State Supreme Court ruling concerning the Lake View Court Case. The Lake View Court Case consisted of two cases, the first was known as Lake View 1, and the second as Lake View 2. Both of these cases were held between 1992 through ~2002. During the case, the Arkansas Supreme Court stated that: In the Arkansas Constitution; The Education Article is found in a separate article, Article 14, and it is couched in terms of the state's duty and not in terms of a personal right vested in the people. This court has said repeatedly that in construing the language of our constitution, we must give the language its plain, obvious, and common meaning. Nonetheless, LakeView and the intervening school districts urge that a fundamental right can be implied from the language of Article 14. (constitution's specific charge to legislature to provide education is sufficient to afford fundamental-right status to beneficiaries of that duty). The Arkansas Supreme Court stated that: At the same time, this court is troubled by four things: (1) the Department of Education has not conducted an adequacy study; (2) despite this court's holding in DuPree v. Alma Sch. Dist. No. 30, supra, that equal opportunity is touchstone for a constitutional system and not merely equalized revenues, the State has only sought to make revenues equal; (3) despite Judge Imber's 1994 order to the same effect, neither the Executive branch nor the General Assembly have taken action to correct the imbalance in ultimate expenditures; and (4) the State, in the budgeting process, continues to treat education without the priority and the preference that the constitution demands. Rather, the State has continued to fund the schools in the same manner, although admittedly taking more steps to equalize revenues. This being said, perhaps the recalcitrance of the State to reform the school-funding system is reason enough to adopt the heightened standard of strict scrutiny. Nevertheless, because we conclude that the clear language of Article 14 imposes upon the State an absolute constitutional duty to educate our children, we conclude that it is unnecessary to reach the issue of whether a fundamental right is also implied. Many states, as we have already discussed, appear to get lost in a morass of legal analysis when discussing the issue of fundamental right and the level of judicial scrutiny. This court is convinced that much of the debate over whether education is a fundamental right is unnecessary. The critical point is that the State has an absolute duty under our constitution to provide an adequate education to each school child. Well, that is fairly self explanatory, isn't it. Here is a sample of some of the email exchanges with a state legislator, who I might add was fairly truthful in his attempt to explain the direction the General Assembly intends to lead the state of Arkansas.