Opinion ID: 3134250
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Ill 2d 314, 323 (1996). The challenged classification need only be

Text: rationally related to a legitimate state goal (People v. Bailey, 167 Ill. 2d 210, 231 (1995)) and if any state of facts can reasonably be conceived to justify the classification, it must be upheld (Jacobson, 171 Ill. 2d at 324). The rationality of Illinois' school funding scheme is best gauged in light of the basic philosophical considerations that have defined the policy debate in the area of public education finance. As noted in Rodriguez:  `The history of education since the industrial revolution shows a continual struggle between two forces: the desire by members of society to have educational opportunity for all children, and the desire of each family to provide the best education it can afford for its own children.'  Rodriguez, 411 U.S. at 49, 36 L. Ed. 2d at 52, 93 S. Ct. at 1305, quoting J. Coleman, Foreword to G. Strayer & R. Haig, The Financing of Education in the State of New York vii (1923). Similarly, one commentator has observed: The character of a public education system can be evaluated in terms of three often competing principles: quality, equality, and liberty. The quality of a school system is high when good educational opportunities are available to the least advantaged children in the state. In a school system featuring a high degree of equality every student has access to the same educational resources as any other student. Liberty is enhanced when localities or families have the autonomy to determine what proportion of their resources they wish to devote to the education of their youth.  A guarantee of equal educational funding does not secure any particular level of quality. It does ensure a high level of equality and a low level of liberty. Liberty is curtailed because equalization of educational funding requires redistribution of resources from wealthy districts to poor ones, which can only be achieved through greater centralization of control over the public schools. Centralization reduces the freedom of localities and families to choose their own levels of educational spending. R. Stark, Education Reform: Judicial Interpretation of State Constitutions' Education Finance Provisions--Adequacy vs. Equality, 1991 Annual Survey of American Law 609, 665-66. The concept of local control in public education connotes not only the opportunity for local participation in decisionmaking but also the freedom to devote more money to the education of one's children. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. at 49-50, 36 L. Ed. 2d at 52, 93 S. Ct. at 1304-05; see also Lujan v. Colorado State Board of Education, 649 P.2d 1005, 1023 (Colo. 1982) ([local] control is exercised by influencing the determination of how much money should be raised for local schools, and how that money should be spent). As noted earlier, several members of the education committee of the Sixth Constitutional Convention voiced strong support for the preservation of local control. They felt that community members would be less enthusiastic in their efforts to improve public education if limits were placed on community decisions to support local schools with local resources for the sake of equalizing resources statewide. The general structure of the State's system of funding public schools through State and local resources--and the particular amounts allocated for distribution as general state aid--represent legislative efforts to strike a balance between the competing considerations of educational equality and local control. Certainly reasonable people might differ as to which consideration should be dominant. However, the highly deferential rational basis test does not permit us to substitute our judgment in this regard for that of the General Assembly, and we have no basis to conclude that the manner in which the General Assembly has struck the balance between equality and local control is so irrational as to offend the guarantee of equal protection. We also note that although reliance on local wealth to fund public education produces variations in resources which do not necessarily correspond to differences in educational need, the same may be said for a variety of important governmental services, such as police and fire protection, which have traditionally been funded at the local level. See Rodriguez, 411 U.S. at 53-54, 36 L. Ed. 2d at 54-55, 93 S. Ct. at 1307. Consequently, the logical implications of declaring Illinois' system of financing public education to be irrational might be far reaching indeed. While the present school funding scheme might be thought unwise, undesirable or unenlightened from the standpoint of contemporary notions of social justice, these objections must be presented to the General Assembly. While some decisions in other jurisdictions have concluded that there is no rational basis for funding disparities based on local wealth (see, e.g., Tennessee Small School Systems v. McWherter, 851 S.W.2d 139, 153-56 (Tenn. 1993); Dupree v. Alma School District No. 30, 279 Ark. 340, 345, 651 S.W.2d 90, 93 (1983)), financing schemes similar to ours have been upheld by a majority of those courts that have applied the rational basis standard (see, e.g., City of Pawtucket v. Sundlun, 662 A.2d 40, 62 (R.I. 1995); Kukor v. Grover, 148 Wis. 2d 469, 497-510, 436 N.W.2d 568, 580-85 (1989); Fair School Finance Council of Oklahoma, Inc. v. State, 746 P.2d 1135, 1150 (Okla. 1987); Hornbeck v. Somerset County Board of Education, 295 Md. 597, 651, 458 A.2d 758, 788-90 (1983); Board of Education, Levittown Union Free School District v. Nyquist, 57 N.Y. 2d 27, 43-46, 439 N.E.2d 359, 366-68, 453 N.Y.S.2d 643, 650-52 (1982); Lujan v. Colorado State Board of Education, 649 P.2d 1005, 1022-23 (Colo. 1982); McDaniel v. Thomas, 248 Ga. 632, 648, 285 S.E.2d 156, 167-68 (1981); Board of Education v. Walter, 58 Ohio St. 2d 368, 377, 390 N.E.2d 813, 820 (1979); Thompson v. Engelking, 537 P.2d 635, 645 (Idaho 1975)). In accordance with Rodriguez and the majority of state court decisions, and for all the reasons set forth above, we conclude that the State's system of funding public education is rationally related to the legitimate State goal of promoting local control. Plaintiffs' claims under the equal protection clause of Illinois Constitution were properly dismissed.