Cite as 351 Ark. 31 (2002)
In response to poor student performance, the State instituted academic distress programs in 1995 for school districts not meeting State Standards of Accreditation. See Ark. Code Ann. §§ 6-201601 through 6-20-1610 (Repl. 1999). Deficient test scores trigger Phase I, which requires the school district to submit an improvement plan to the Department of Education; then Phase II, where the Department prepares the improvement plan; and finally Phase III, where the Department may mandate consolidation or a take-over of the district. Of the twelve school districts on the academic distress list at the time of the 2001 order, all were classified as poor.
c. Constitutional History.
We return then to our starting point and that is what Article 14, § 1, of the Arkansas Constitution requires of the State for education:
Intelligence and virtue being the safeguards of liberty and the bulwark of a free and good government, the State shall ever maintain a general, suitable and efficient system of free public schools and shall adopt all suitable means to secure to the people the advantages and opportunities of education.
Education has been a constitutional focus and mandate since the founding of our state. The framers of the first Arkansas constitution adopted the following Education Clause in 1836:
Knowledge and learning generally diffused through a community being essential to the preservation of a free government, and diffusing the opportunities and advantages of education through the various parts of the State being highly conducive to this end, it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to provide by law for the improvement of such lands as are, or hereafter may be, granted by the United States to this State for the use of schools, and to apply any funds which may be raised from such lands, or from any other source, to the accomplishment of the object for which they are, or may be, intended. The General Assembly shall from time to time pass such laws as shall be calculated to encourage intellectual, scientific and agricultural improvement by allowing rewards and immunities for the promotion and improvement of arts, science, commerce, manufactures
