Cite as 351 Ark. 31 (2002)
when a classification is based on a suspect category . . . will strict scrutiny, a more demanding standard of review, be applied."). The less severe level is rational-basis review, where the question is whether there is merely a legitimate governmental purpose behind the disparate treatment in school funding between school districts, and whether the current school-funding system bears a rational relationship to that purpose. See, e.g., San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973); Jegley v. Picado, supra.
[17, 18] Strict-scrutiny review is unwarranted in this case. We have never considered school districts to be a suspect class for purposes of an equal-protection analysis. See DuPree v. Alma Sch. Dist. No. 30, supra. See also San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, supra. We hold, once again, that requiring the State to show a compelling interest to support the classification is unnecessary in this case, because the State fails to justify the classification even under the more modest rational-basis standard. See DuPree v. Alma Sch. Dist. No. 30, supra.
[19] We turn then to the State's contention that even though disparities in educational opportunities may exist due to the property wealth of the individual districts, there are legitimate government purposes or rational bases for this. Those purposes, according to the State, are local control and other state programs. We rejected the argument of local control in DuPree in no uncertain terms and stated that such reasoning was illusory because deference to local control has nothing to do with whether educational opportunities are equal across the state. It is the General Assembly's constitutional duty, not that of the school districts, to provide equal educational opportunity to every child in this state. Furthermore, the State's claim that the General Assembly must fund a variety of state programs in addition to education and that this is reason enough for an inferior education system hardly qualifies as a legitimate reason.
It has long been the State's position that its duty is fulfilled under the state constitution if it pays school districts an equal amount in revenues on a per-student basis and then defers to local control as to how that money is spent. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is the States's responsibility to provide an equal
