Northshore School District No. 417 v. Kinnear

530 P.2d 178, 84 Wash. 2d 685, 1974 Wash. LEXIS 773

• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Decided: December 16, 1974
• Docket: 42352
• Status: Published

Opinions

Hale, C. J.

— Education is a bulwark of this democracy. A system of free public schools, like a system of open courts, not only helps make life worth living but sustains our long-cherished ideas of- individual. liberty. Where the riátión’s constitution provides for a system of open courts, however, it makes no mention of free public schools. The people of this state found this oversight- unacceptable in 1889 when they brought Washington Territory into the Union. Not only did they establish a judicial system, but at the same time they provided for a system of free public schools, imposing then and there a duty upon the State to make ample provision for the education of all children within its borders.- -.

Since statehood, the legislature has structured, a comprehensive system of public schools, enacting, reenacting, amending and repealing a detailed code for the funding, operating and maintaining of that system which includes a code for the employment, certification, and retirement of teachers and school administrators. It is a system administered by a Superintendent of Public Instruction and a State Board of Education but puts direct responsibility and authority for actually operating the schools upon 320 separate school districts. The constitutionality of that system is now challenged.

Petitioners are 25 of the 320 school districts of this state, their directors, resident parents, taxpayers and children. They bring their original petition to this court for a writ of prohibition and mandamus to declare the State’s system for funding its public schools unconstitutional and to prohibit State officers from collecting and disbursing public funds in support of it.¹ So sweeping are the demands that, if their petition were upheld, the schools would have to be closed tinless the legislature redesigned and restructured the statutes for the funding and operation of the public school system in consonance with the requirements of the decisional law which would be laid down by this court in sustaining the petition. For reasons now stated, we sustain the constitutionality of the laws creating, funding and maintaining the public schools and deny the petition.

' Petitioners advance four arguments for unconstitutionality:

1. That the children of this state are denied equal protection of the laws in violation of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and article 1, section 12 of the Constitution of the State of Washington because of the differences in assessed valuation per pupil of property within the several districts.

2. That taxpayers in districts with lower assessed valuation per pupil are denied equal protection of the law in violation of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution and article 1, section 12 of the Constitution of the State of Washington because the low assessed valuation compels them to pay a higher percentage of taxes to raise the same amount of money for the schools than do taxpayers in the high assessed valuation districts.

3. That the State system fails to make ample provision for the education of all children in the state of Washington as prescribed by Const, art. 9, § 1.

4. That the State has failed to provide a general and uniform system of public schools as prescribed by Const, art. 9, § 2.

It should be noted that all of the four contentions are directed not only to the entire present system of funding the public schools but they necessarily challenge the entire statutory code establishing the several districts and operating and maintaining the common schools of the state. The system for funding is merely the obverse side of the system for collecting and distributing the money and the two are so inextricably connected that the constitutionality of the one cannot be appraised without considering the other. For this reason, it is clear petitioners must, in order to challenge the funding system, include the spending system, for funding necessarily includes disbursements. Thus, the remedy sought must be deemed to include a prohibition of collecting and disbursement of moneys for the operation of the presently existing system of public schools. Petitioners’ challenge is thus sweeping, comprehensive and all-encompassing. It is not directed to any particular section or sections of the education code of this state but to the entire code embodied in RCW 28A.

More specifically, petitioners ask this court to issue writs of mandate and prohibition directing that State school moneys be allocated among the school districts on a different basis than now prevails; that the court direct that a new and different scheme or system for school financing be established; that respondent public officers be prohibited from allocating and distributing State school moneys to the various districts in the assertedly unconstitutional way it is now done; and that this court declare the present system and method of school financing and funding unconstitutional and, therefore, void. This court can and should, it is claimed, even if it grants the relief asked, retain jurisdiction of this case to afford the respondent public officials and the legislature reasonable time in which to provide a system of school funding and financing which will comply with the constitutions. What will happen to the schools of this state should the legislature fail to meet these requirements is left to the imagination.

Respondents are various State officers whose official responsibilities, in one way or another, affect the operation of the public schools of this state. They include the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Director of the Department of Revenue, the State Treasurer, and the Members of the State Board of Education. The true respondent, of course, but not named as a party, is the State legislature upon, whom the main responsibility for funding the schools ■inevitably falls and through whose enactments the whole school system now under challenge was created and is now maintained. .

Because this was an original application for prohibition and mandamus and the parties could reach no agreement on the facts, this court referred the matter to the Superior Court which heard evidence and entered findings of fact. The evidence presented to the Superior. Court consisted almost entirely of statistical data released principally .by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, with some from the various school district offices, and the opinion evidence of experts explaining or interpreting the statistical data. The statement of facts thus is in the form of many tables, graphs, charts, diagrams, lists and numerical records, and the testimony of professional experts in school affairs interpreting, interpolating and explaining them. Thus, the court’s findings from the very nature of the evidence are largely matters of opinion, and this court is in an equally .good position with the Superior Court to examine the whole record for a determination of those facts ultimately affecting the constitutionality of the State system of public schools.

Our responsibility in this case, as a court passing upon the constitutionality of the common school system of the state, its funding, financing and operations, is to stick to the issues and if possible avoid editorializing about the plight of the schools and their needs, and we take it we should stifle the tendency normally arising in a case of this sort to convey to the legislature and the board- and the Superintendent of Public Instruction our view as to how the schools should be maintained and the kinds of taxes which should be imposed and the ways the revenues should be distributed to maintain them. We are concerned here with the issues of constitutionality and nothing else arising from a challenge to the statutory structure of the common school system of the state, a system embodied in a comprehensive code of education (RCW 28A) and an administrative code (WAC 180) implementing it.

Petitioners’ contentions that they, as parents, children and school districts, are deprived of equal protection of the laws, are based largely on the assertion that comparative property. values, being unequal among the 320 districts, inevitably reflect a disparity in the quality of educational opportunities among the districts. Districts having a higher assessed valuation per pupil, they say, have an easier time passing special school levies; since special school levies mean added revenue derived from • added millage, the greater the appraised value, the more revenue from the same millage, and thus an even greater disparity, producing finally, it is argued, an inequality rising to unconstitutional proportions as the percentage of State funds declines with the increasing percentage of. local funding. Thus, it is argued that the ratio of State contributions compared to local contributions renders the existing scheme unconstitutional. Expressed otherwise, as the local funding increases, largely through special levies in relation to State funds, the State’s percentage inevitably decreases.

Before considering the factual data put into the record and the expert opinion concerning its meaning, there are a few basic concepts and facts of school funding upon which there is little or no disagreement. Article 9, section 2, of the State constitution does impose, upon the State a duty to make available to every child within its borders the means for . an ample education. The State now tries to do this by means of the State Superintendént of Public Instruction, a State Board of Education, and the establishment of 320 school districts having locally elected and designated boards and administrators. The statutory code for operating the entire school system is principally contained in RCW 28A, various tax statutes, an administrative code, and statutes providing for the funding and operation of a teacher retirement system (RCW 41.32). The existing statutory structure funding and operating the whole scheme began with statehood and ever since has been under continuing development and evolution by means of statutory enactments. Resort to the legisative history will show that in the past 50 years the legislature has rarely failed to make important amendments and changes in the statutory structure for funding and operating the common schools.

Under the existing statutory scheme, the two main sources of school money are funds from local property taxes and State funds contributed directly to all districts, guaranteeing a fixed amount per pupil to each district. Other sources come from “in lieu of tax receipts, real estate excises, state forest funds” and other minor sources of revenue. These latter do not materially affect the question of constitutionality for the issue here is the amount of State funds in relation to local property tax funds.

To achieve what the State Superintendent of Public Instruction deems to be a fair and equitable distribution of State moneys so that every district can afford to meet its basic needs for providing an ample educational opportunity, and at the same time recognizing that some districts must have more money than others to attain the same relative standards, a complicated formula for State contributions has been devised and is now applied by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction to distribute among the districts a guaranteed sum per weighted student based on a full year of 180 days. RCW 28A.41.130. At the risk of over-simplification, we describe it in most elemental terms:

In applying this statutory system for State funding, the State, under RCW 28A.41, guarantees to each district $365 each for what is professionally described as a “weighted pupil.” To determine what is a “weighted pupil,” the superintendent’s office applies a formula by taking the average yearly enrollment of the district, counting kindergarten children as one-half, and makes increased allowance for educating different categories of students among the various districts. Among these variations are .3 to be added for each high school student; .2 for each vocational student. The formula also allows an. extra .25 for interdistrict collaboration and cooperative services, and provides some additional amount to encourage in-service education and to upgrade the educational system by higher certification, and for academic degrees and experience in the educational staffs. Thus, the “weighted student” enrollment is different from the actual number of students in daily average attendance. It is this “weighted student” enrollment that is multiplied by the $365 guarantee which constitutes the State’s contribution to the school funding system. By means of the “weighted student” enrollment formula, the State increases its contribution among all the 320 districts indiscriminately for those categories of students conceded among educators to require additional money to provide them with reasonably standardized educational opportunities.

Petitioners do not contend that the “weighted student” formula for distributing State moneys to the 320 districts is unconstitutional; and there is no serious argument that it is unsound or unfair. The formula recognizes that it costs more money apparently to provide a student with a vocational or high school education than for elementary or kindergarten training, and there are times, of course, when some districts will have a higher ratio of the former than do other districts.

But that is not the end of the formula. The State also makes two deductions from that total fund realized by multiplying $365 times the number of “weighted students.” It deducts 85 percent of the amount the school district would raise from 14 mills levied upon 25 percent of the fair market value of taxable real estate within the district; and it also deducts from the “weighted student” guarantee the amount each district raises from such items of revenue as “nonhigh receipts, in lieu of tax receipts, real estate excise taxes, state forest funds” and a few other small items of revenue. It reimburses all of the various districts for a high percentage of their costs of student transportation.

This, of course, represents only the most elementary picture of whát is a highly complicated but long-standing procedure. Unless the. existing system is unconstitutional, however,. then all changes whether for better or worse-must come from the legislature and cannot be initiated by this court.

Is the present system of funding and distributing- the money for the public schools unconstitutional and, therefore, void? Has the State failed, and is it now failing, to discharge its duty to make ample provision for educating all children within its borders by means of a general and uniform system?

If petitioners are right in their contentions and the differences in assessed valuation per student among the districts engender an unconstitutional disparity, then special millage levies will enhance such disparities among the districts, and it then follows that special millage elections, emphasizing as they do the differences in property valúa-' tions, would also be intrinsically unconstitutional. No such premise is established by this record. '

In a record replete with graphs, charts, bulletins, tables, reports arid other documents relating to the public schools of the state and particularly funding and disbursements, most of which were compiled from or consisted of dátá supplied by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, along with the testimony of several experts in the field of education, there is no proof that this State has ever failed to discharge its paramount duty, as prescribed by Const, art. 9, § 1, to “make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders, without distinction or preference on account of race, color, caste, or sex.” The closest any witness came to reaching such a conclusion was one who said that, after three successive millage failures, his district had to cut a number of courses and reorganize classes and curriculum hnd he thought'this left his district below State standards. Significantly, petitioners’ briefs make no point of this testimony nor even, allude to it. There was no. evidence that any child had’been "deprived of accreditation, promotion or admission to other schools because his district failed to meet State standards or that any student or parent had been forced to bring suit to compel his district to provide classes that met State standards. Nor was it shown that the Office of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction had held any petitioner district to be substandard. Nor is it contended that any child in any petitioner district, or any other district for that matter, would be without remedy in the courts in particular cases for want of an ample opportunity for an education. Nor can one conclude from the evidence in this case that the legislature has failed to provide for a general and uniform system of public schools including common schools and high schools and normal schools and technical schools as prescribed by Const, art. 9, § 2.

The case, as noted, comes here upon the original application of 25 of the State’s 320 school districts, school directors, parents of school children, and children regularly enrolled in and attending the public schools of the respective petitioner districts. Absent from the case are the other 295 districts containing by far the greater majority of all school children in the state. We have had no trial in the true sense of the word. Petitioners ask this court by extraordinary writ for a sweeping decree of unconstitutionality to be directed against the entire public school system of the state. The record is notably silent as to what constitutes an ample opportunity for an education. Petitioners make virtually no showing whatever as to the standards or curriculum which is or ought to be necessary to meet the State’s duty to provide a common school education for all children, and supply no comparative basis for a ruling as a matter of law that the State has not been and now is not discharging its paramount duty, or whether it is exceeding it. The entire case is thus based not upon curriculum deficiencies and lack of educational opportunities but rather upon financial and property valuation comparisons derived almost exclusively from statistical data, information and reports issued by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the various school districts of the state and attendant charts, graphs and tables.

Petitioners’ major claims of unconstitutionality, as indicated, are based on inequality in assessed valuation. Their claims do not arise, therefore, from asserted deficiencies in curriculum, but stem largely in this case from the idea that districts with lower assessed valuation per student raise less money per mill in special levies, or are less inclined to vote the extra millages in special elections. Thus, it is argued the school funding statutes and scheme are unconstitutional because local property taxes represent a substantial part of school revenues; that disparities in these revenues develop among the various districts because they reflect differences in assessed valuation per student; that these differences in valuation in turn are reflected in both the amounts derived from special millage elections and the voters’ general inclination in districts of low valuation to reject special millages. All of this, it is said, produces in turn unconstitutional inequality in educational opportunities available to children throughout the state. Differences arising from variances in local tax income per student, it is said, reflect unconstitutional differences in expenditures per student. Thus, the whole system, petitioners argue, is made unconstitutional because of claimed variances in educational opportunities stemming largely from differences in assessed valuation per student.

But the record does not bear out these claims of unconstitutional inequality of educational opportunity. There is no evidence whatever that one district or another provides unconstitutionally superior or unconstitutionally inferior opportunities; nor is there evidence as to which are the better or inferior of offending districts, if any, one way or another; nor is it denied that due to social, economic and demographic differences some districts will require substantially more money than others to provide approximately the same level of educational opportunities. Conclusions of fact resting largely as they do upon opinion and conjecture and drawn from the statistical data in the record,'as will be shown, do not sustain the assertion of unconstitutional failure of the State to fulfill its duty.

Mr. Francis Flerchinger, from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, with 11 years’ experience in that work, testified that he had spent more than a year as a staff member of a committee studying the State school aid formula to determine whether there should be revisions in the school formula proposed. These studies, he said, had been continuous throughout the 11 years of his career, and it can be assumed as a matter of commonsense, that they have been going on at least for the last 40 or 50 years. The most current study in which he was then engaged, he said, had been initiated at the request of the State legislature.

Mr. Flerchinger testified that differentiations in assessed valuations had little or nothing to do with the quality of education supplied by the various districts. One criterion, he said, which is not controlling but significant is that which is called “basic expenditure per pupil.” These basic expenditures

are arrived at by subtracting from the total expenditures those items received by only some of the school districts including the expenditure for food services, transportation, all specially funded state and federal programs and those payments received for providing services to other school districts. The figure is then divided by the number of pupils.

He pointed out that the basic expenditures per pupil could and did vary to an extraordinary degree from a high of $4,517 per pupil down to $470 per pupil, but that the quality of education between the two districts might be about the same or the differences imperceptible. Thus, the Patterson District, with only 5 children in the entire district, had the highest basic expenditure per pupil, but could not be said to be providing superior educational opportunities than those of all of the other districts whose similar expenditures per pupil were much lower.

Referring to some of the charts, graphs and exhibits, Mr. Flerchinger said that the mean basic expenditure per.-pupil per district for all 320 districts in the state was $819,- that, the existing standard deviation from the $819 was $292, and that 158 of the largest school districts in the state contained 95 percent of the State’s school pupils. Adverting to the mean expenditure per pupil for these 158 districts contain-, ing the 95 percent of the school population, he said it amounted to $667 with the standard deviation of- only $84 as contrasted with $292 from the $819 mean basic expenditure for all 320 districts.

In Mr. Flerchinger’s judgment, illustrated by reference to the material contained in the graphs, charts and other exhibits, he explained why there is a difference in the ratio of certificated staff per 1,000 students among the school districts in Washington. Here is his testimony on that point:

Q. From your observation of the data contained in the study on public school financing and from your general experience with the public school system, do you have an opinion as to why the size of the enrollment in a district is the main factor which explains differences in the number of certificated staff per 1,000 students? A. It has to do with basically the availability of students.- Patterson; the smallest district here, has a staffing ratio of 200 certificated staff for 1,000 pupils. They don’t have 1,000 pupils, they have 5, and they have 1 staff member. And you just concentrate on this end of- the graph, the smallest districts, you can see the staff going down, because when they add that additional pupil, when they go from 5 to 6, that is a very significant change in the staffing per 1,000 pupils and in fact carries on throughout this. It is not a uniform effect because there is a mixing of districts in here, both elementary and secondary, and the staff ratios are- different between elementary and secondary.

He thus concluded that one of the primary determinants of the differences in the basic expenditures for the school children of the state is mainly a result of the variations in the number of certificated staff members per 1,000 students. He carried this analysis one step farther by saying that 75 percent of all the variations in expenditure per pupil - in Washington are accounted for by differences in pay and the differences in the number of certificated staff per 1,000.

Revenue for the schools, Mr. Flerchinger said, comes almost entirely from seven sources: (1) local taxes; (2) county administered funds; (3) State funds; (4) federal funds; (5) nontax revenue receipts; (6) nonrevenue receipts; and (7) payments from other districts. From these funds, Mr. Flerchinger testified, of the moneys going to each district: 31.38 percent are accounted for by local taxes for the state as a whole; 2.71 percent are county administered funds; 53.59 percent are State funds; 6.40 percent are federal funds; .82 percent are nontax revenue receipts; 3.53 percent are nonrevenue receipts; and .02 percent are payments from other districts.

The State treasury by statute receives 2 mills from each district and sends this money back to the district, and these 2 mills account for an item of 4.59 percent included in the above 53.59 percent of State funds. Since the conclusions of fact to be drawn from the evidence consist in this case almost entirely of interpretations,' evaluations and comparison of the statistical data issued regularly from the Office of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction and the school districts, conclusions of constitutionality or unconstitutionality must be drawn from that same data. Petitioners’ contentions, if sustained by this court, might well operate to reduce the quality of education in the state by converting the lowest common denominator, i.e., assessed valuation, into the highest common denominator, and thus eliminate the major inducements for the various districts by means of special millage elections to promote and elevate the status of its schools above the minimum State standard.

Although the figures, depending upon how they are interpreted, may show that State school funds in the past 12 years have dropped from about 62 percent of the total funding to about 50 percent, at present, this decline is due not to decreases in State funds but largely to increases in school funds from local property taxes. Local tax revenues for the schools in this same 12-year period have risen from about 22 percent of the whole to nearly 36 percent. The significant part of this, however, is that funds from both sources have increased enormously in the past 12 years, the changing ratio being due to the fact that local school funds have increased more than State funds.

Differences in assessed valuation shown from the material before us have little to do with meeting State standards of education. Enrollment, rather than valuation, is the more significant key. Thus, for statistical purposes, the principal graphs and tables received in evidence are based on data from the 158 largest districts out of the total 320 districts in the state. Their significance is apparent when it is shown that these 158 districts contain 95 percent of the entire school enrollment. Among these 158 districts, there is, said Mr. Flerchinger, a standard deviation of .85, a point not fully explained in the testimony. In another context, the total expenditure per pupil per district would be $819, but the mean expenditure per pupil for the 158 of the large districts is $667. Thus, Mr. Flerchinger, using the data and charts received in evidence as a basis for his conclusions as earlier indicated testified as follows:

Q. Can you compare the data in Respondents’ Graph No. 35 with Respondents’ Graphs Nos. 28 and 29? A. Yes. Q. Have you? A. Yes, we have. We performed a calculation called a step which is multiple regression analysis, which is a method of arriving at relating the interrelationships of the, in this case the three variables in such a manner you have eliminated the complications of the other variables on the main variable. In this case we are attempting to shall we say account for the basic expenditure per pupil and the program selected, the computer selected as the two primary factors the average pay for certificated staff and a staffing ratio per 1,000 pupils as accounting for 75 percent of the variation in the expenditure per pupil. Q. So what you are saying is that 75 percent of all the variations in expenditure per pupil in Washington are accounted for by differences in pay and the differences in the number of certificated staff per 1,000? A. That’s correct.

He testified accordingly that the basic expenditure per pupil, as evidenced by graph No. 28 in evidence, would show little as to the differences in quality of education between large districts and small districts. When measuring the quality of the actual program conducted within the classroom there is, he said, “little that you can say from that graph.”

Accordingly, he said, neither the teacher-student ratio nor the expenditures per pupil were adequate criteria for explaining or judging the quality of education a student is receiving in the various school districts of the state. Thus, alluding to a graph showing the relationship of expenditures per pupil to assessed valuation, he said that the higher assessed valuation per pupil in the larger districts is generally associated with a declining student enrollment. The size of the district, as measured by enrollment, he concluded, is the factor which most explains the difference between assessed valuation per pupil. He testified:

If you divide assessed valuation ... by the number of pupils in the district, the smaller districts are going to have the higher valuation. The other factor that comes in, of course, is the basic property within the district, the total valuation. But the diviser in that equation, that is the number of pupils, changes the other factors very significantly.

He concluded on this point:

If you are taking the state as a whole, the smaller districts in expenditure per pupil bear an inordinate weight in the computation of the correlation coefficient of .85 which is the relationship between those two variables, and if you analyzed that smaller 162 and actually play around for a moment with the enrollment by adding one or two pupils here or there, you can significantly change that, and so therefore you have to conclude from that that the enrollment or the number of pupils available in the district as the diviser of these two factors has a very strong significance on the expenditure per pupil and the assessed valuation per pupil, and therefore it provides a spurious relationship when you do a statistical analysis using those two variables.

Variations in expenditures per pupil mid assessed valuation per pupil are both mathematical functions of enrollment — a conclusion of ultimate .f act inevitably to be drawn from-the •evidence in this case and as a matter, of commonsense.

Referring to exhibit No. 53, Mr. Flerchinger testified that, if the expenditures- for all 320 districts were considered, the mean or average per district for the 1970-71 year would be $819, but. that the mean for the 158 larger districts comprising 95 percent of the school population would be. $667. And of these 158 districts, 86, or 54 percent, would -be below the mean and 72 districts or 46 percent above it.

Dr. Larry Bundy, Director of Office and Management Systems, and formerly Administration and Finance Consultant in the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, agreed with Mr. Flerehinger’s interpretation of all of the data put in evidence and his conclusions of fact from it. Speaking of the differences in assessed valuation per pupil and comparing these to the expenditures per pupil in all 320 districts, Dr. Bundy testified:

Q. Have you had occasion to compare and study the amounts of assessed valuation per pupil and compare them with expenditures per.pupil between the different school districts of the State? A. Yes, I have. Q. What have you found? A. Taking the three hundred twenty districts that existed, represented by the ’70-’71 data, we observed that there was a fairly strong relationship between those factors looking at all the districts; however, if you break them into segments representing the'first one hundred fifty-eight districts representing the bulk of the student population as the statistical population, then the relationship between those two factors is not nearly as great or nearly as statistically significant. Q. Would you say that there is not a significant relationship between assessed valuation per pupil and basic expenditure per pupil when one hundred fifty-eight school districts which contain ninety-five percent of the students of the State are compared? A. I would say there’s a relatively insignificant relationship.

Theh referring to the 158 districts which contain 95 percent of all students in the state, he testified as follows:

Q. (By Mr. Coats) Would you say that there is a significant relationship between the assessed valuation per pupil and basic expenditure per pupil when the one hundred fifty-eight school districts which contain ninety-five percent of the students of the State are compared? A. I would say there’s a relatively insignificant relationship between those two factors concerning the one hundred fifty-eight districts. Q. Would you say the relationship between assessed valuation of property per pupil and basic expenditure per pupil in the one hundred sixty-two school districts which contain only five percent of the students is primarily explained by the small school districts’ tendency to be sparsely populated and not by a causal connection between assessed valuation per pupil and basic expenditure per pupil? A. Yes. Q. Have you found from your study that there is any credible evidence which shows that a wealthy child or the child of wealthy parents has a better chance of having a high basic expenditure on his public education than a poor child or the child of poor parents in the State of Washington? A. No. Q. In your study, have you found any evidence which indicates that a wealthy person is more likely than a poor person to live in a school district with a high assessed valuation per pupil? A. No.

Dr. Bundy testified categorically that, from his analysis of the relationship between assessed valuation per pupil and expenditures per pupil in Washington, a school district with high assessed valuation is not more likely to pass a special levy than a school district with low assessed valuation per pupil. He said he had made a systematic study of valuations, property and taxes and that not only was there no credible evidence that people from wealthy families tend to live in school districts with high assessed valuation per pupil, or that poor families tend to live in school districts with low assessed valuation per pupil but that his studies showed the exact opposite to be true. Using the State’s largest district, that of Seattle, he made this clear. This evidence is convincingly demonstrated by a bar chart showing assessed valuation per student in 10 of the State’s largest districts as follows:

Seattle .........................$35,393

Spokane........................$16,245

Tacoma ........................$17,518

Highline .......................$12,124

Edmonds .......................$12,394

Bellevue .......................$16,627

Shoreline.......................$13,964

Vancouver .....................$17,818

Renton.........................$29,154

Federal Way ...................$ 8,757

The petitioners’ whole case was based on the unconstitutional effect upon education stemming from differences in assessed valuation. But a glance at the above figures will demonstrate its fallacy. According to these samples, Seattle district, with an assessed valuation per pupil of $35,393 should be reveling in a surplus of money, and Tacoma with about half that, at $17,518 virtually unable to open the school doors; by comparison, Bellevue School District with only $16,627 assessed valuation per student would be so substandard as to be unworthy of claiming a right to participate in discharging the State’s paramount duty. Then, of course, Federal Way at $8,757, when compared to the apparent opulence of Renton, at $29,154, would have to be classified as an educational disaster area.

Mr. Llewellyn O. Griffith, Administrative Consultant for Special Services, Office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction, testified that this State had accreditation standards issued yearly, but that they applied to high schools only. He said that the State Board of Education also “approved” public schools from kindergarten through grade 12, which presumably gives the State some authority in requiring that the schools meet certain minimum standards. There is, however, no recognized standard in use or yet devised for measuring precisely the quality of education a child is receiving in a given school district. Conceding the obvious, that money is essential to operating the schools, he testified that it is not easier to raise money by a special levy in districts that have a higher assessed valuation; nor that it is more difficult to raise money by special levy in districts that have a low assessed valuation. When asked by the court what would be the principal factor in passing special levies, he testified:

This depends entirely upon the policy of the school district. In my personal knowledge, in my opinion now, a good many districts set the level of a special levy on the basis of interrogation of a few business people downtown and what they will stand; they do not make that judgment on the basis of what quality is required in that school in order to give the pupils in that school a comparable education with the district next door or elsewhere, and that is why I said that it is the quality of the authority, their insight into what children need, their feeling for children, rather than anything else that makes a good school board.

Whatever disparities exist in the quality of education— and Mr. Griffith did not in any way intimate that any district failed to meet the minimum standards necessary to meet the State’s paramount duty — stemmed, he said, not from variances in assessed valuation, but from numerical differences in population. Pointing out the main reason for differences, he said:

As long as we allow school districts to exist whose boundaries do not encompass sufficient students to make a reasonable per pupil expenditure, we will have bad education in pockets across the State.

There is no showing here that even the districts which seem to be in more dire financial straits than others have failed to meet those standards of educational opportunity which can fairly be said to be embodied in the duty of the State.

The same lack of relationship between assessed valuation per student and quality of educational opportunity appears in an examination of another bar graph pertaining to and showing the assessed valuation per student among the following districts:

Clover Park ....................$10,784

Lake Washington ...............$14,061'

Kent ...........................$17,889

Everett.........................$25,338

Yakima ........................$15,559

Puyallup .......................$11,896

Northshore .....................$12,515

Central ..........................$10,441

Bellingham .....................$17,109

Longview ......................$34,060

Thus, Northshore has a substantially higher assessed valuation per student than either Clover Park or Puyallup or Central and a modest amount less than Lake Washington, and one can draw no rational conclusion whatever from these differences as to the degree, if any, by which one district or the other, if any, fails to provide adequate educational opportunities for the children within its borders.

Petitioners here make much of the truism that it takes more mills for a district of low assessed valuation to raise the same amount of school money than it does in a district with a high assessed valuation. Thus, according to one bar graph, 11.1 mills will raise $392.47 per enrolled pupil in Seattle; 24.2 mills to raise $211.71 in Federal Way; 24.4 mills to raise $296.33 in Highline; 15.9 mills to raise $278.12 in Tacoma, while 28.7 mills will raise $358.92 in North-shore. But these graphs repudiate the very basis upon which petitioners would have us void the school statutes. Even this very limited comparison of but 5 of 320. districts shows that Northshore, by raising $358.92 from 28.7 mills is much better off financially under petitioners’- theories than is Highline, for example, which raises only $296.33 from a 24.4 millage, and Federal Way which gets only $211.71 from 24.2 mills.

That the assessed valuation per pupil has little to do with the quality of education is also demonstrated in the graph showing the number of certificated personnel per 1,000 enrolled students: Northshore, one of petitioner districts, has 50.4 certificated personnel’ per 1,000 students whereas Shoreline district has only 39.6 certificated personnel per 1,000 students. Renton has 46.3 certificated personnel per 1,000-students; Federal Way, 46.9; Kent, 48.7; Clover Park,' 49.3; Edmonds, 50; Auburn, 50.7; Highline, 51.6; Lake Washington, 52.5; Mercer Island, 54.9; Seattle, 55.8; Issaquah, 55.8; Bellevue, 55.8; Tacoma, 56.4; and South Central, 56.5. According to this, petitioner Northshore is much better off than Shoreline, Renton, Federal Way and Kent and about on a parity for certificated personnel per 1,000 students with Clover Park, Edmonds, Auburn and Highline.

These figures, taken largely from the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s Office show conclusively that assessed valuation per pupil not only has little to do with the quality of education in the enumerated districts, but that no decision as to the equal protection of the laws nor the paramount duty to provide uniform education can be based upon it. The significance of assessed valuation per pupil is thus inconstant, tenuous, superficial and coincidental only-

Accordingly, petitioners’ first claim of unconstitutionality, that children who live in school districts with low assessed valuation of property per pupil are denied equal protection of the laws contrary to the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution and Const, art. 1, § 12, and, therefore, are victims of the State’s failure to discharge its paramount duty to them, is not only not supported by the evidentiary data in the case, but is essentially disproved by it.

The record also fails to vindicate petitioners’ position that differences in assessed value among the districts denies equal protection to the taxpayer. That it takes more millage to raise the same amount of dollars on low valued property than it does on high valued property is no more than a meaningless truism and can be answered with another truism that the lower the value of one’s property the lower one’s taxes, neither truism having anything to do with the equal protection clause of both constitutions so long as everybody in the taxing scheme pays the same rate. Differences in assessed valuation per pupil among the various districts do not to a constitutional degree substantially affect the amounts of revenue per pupil available nor the amount expended per pupil; nor the cost per pupil in providing about the same quality of education throughout the state. Disparities among the districts, it is shown in this record, arise not only from variances in revenue raised but in the necessary differences of money to be spent because: (1) Differences in appraisals of property for tax purposes by assessors may persist in the various counties. As between districts in different counties, a systematically high appraisal will produce more school revenue than a systematically low appraisal; (2) A lowering of the State’s share has dropped from 59.2 percent of the total in 7 years to 49 percent, not because of a decrease in State appropriations but largely because the individual districts have put up proportionately more from local taxes and special levies; (3) All things are relative and, short of abolishing separate districts and converting the state into one school district, the disparities in tax revenues from the various areas of the state will persist; (4) Converting the entire state into a single district will not alter the differences in expenditures necessary to provide a substantially uniform system affording reasonably equal educational opportunities in the different areas of the state for the obvious reason that costs per child will vary due to the infinite differences in geography, climate, terrain, social and economic conditions, transportation and special services, and local choice as to extra curriculum and special services to be made available in consonance with the State’s minimal requirements.

Where one district may offer a richer program in music and dramatic arts, another may go beyond the State’s requirements in science or social studies, or physical education or agriculture, and others may emphasize more than one field of student activity beyond the college preparatory phases. One district may supply a more comprehensive remedial program for physical behavioral and emotional problems, and another may provide less than some experts may deem to be minimal. These are choices which inhere in the idea of viable local participation in establishing, operating and funding the common schools. If these differences are of constitutional dimension, there exists a remedy in equity to compel the particular school district or the State in a particular case to provide such services, but that is not the remedy these petitioners are seeking. .

Most of the data put into evidence, as earlier noted, came from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and some from the superintendents’ offices of local school districts. From these statistics, the State, has published a table showing comparative sources of revenue for the past 10 years.

Even a cursory examination of the following table will show that the State has striven not only to discharge its paramount duty but perhaps to exceed it. Where local funds derived from all local revenues including $11-plus millions in real estate excises, $72-plus millions from local real and personal property taxes, and miscellaneous other local taxes totaled $106-plus millions in 1962-63, the State contribution was $209-plus millions for that year. In 10 years the total local funds derived from all local sources had climbed to $312-plus millions, but the State funds contributed to the common schools had at the same time escalated to $391-plus millions. One must remember that the local funds include taxes levied on property in the districts and 2 mills allocated by the legislature to the State and returned to the districts and not deemed a part of the State’s contribution. Taking into consideration the components and sources of all revenues for the common schools, the State can prudently contend that it has surpassed the requirements of a paramount duty and by comparison has done as good, if not better, a job to meet its State responsibilities.than the districts have done to meet theirs, particularly when there has been no evidence whatever that any. child in the state is without opportunity for an education of: a quality commensurate with the discharge of the.State’s; paramount duty.

All things in life are relative and related, including school financing. Petitioners, in contending the whole structure for funding the common schools to be unconstitutional and, therefore, void because of the variances in assessed valuation per pupil, cannot avoid the implication that special millage levies for the schools are unconstitutional, too. If they are correct in their first premise, the other necessar-. ily follows for the simple reason that special millage levies in the several districts not only precisely reflect but commensurately enlarge the very disparities which petitioners say are unconstitutional. Unconstitutionality of special millage elections would necessarily follow if petitioners’ theories are accepted despite the fact that provision for special-levies is found in the constitution itself in Amendment 17 and Amendments 55 and 59 (Const, art, 7, § 2). If, as the petitioners now assert, it is the-variations in assessed valúa-, tion per pupil among the districts which makes ■ existing school funding and expenditures and statutes unconstitutional, then special millage elections which create or enlarge these disparities are likewise unconstitutional..

We do not think that special millage elections are, under: our constitution and the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution, or should be held unconstitutional by the courts and thus abolished. Resolution of siich. an issue must be left to the people through the amendment process. Although the legislature may devise, other means of financing the schools, rendering special millage elections unnecessary and superfluous, we recognize that presently) these elections have their place under the existing scheme of school funding.

Speciál millage elections are provided for in the State constitution. Théy not only are consistent With local-participation in school administration but are the most vital and effective means by which the people of a given school district may maintain, improve and enhance the processes of education for their children without at the same time depriving the parents of children of other districts from doing the same. Through special millage levies, people of one district may improve the educational process without disparaging or denigrating that of another district. Special millage elections are the only means now available by which a majority of the people of the district may directly impose a tax on absentee owners of property within the district or upon corporations, neither of which send children to school in the district. Obviously these are some of the considerations motivating the people to write provisions for special millages into the State constitution and keeping them in effect.

Aside from the undeniable fact that nothing in the school funding and expenditure laws or statute structure prevents parents from freely moving from one school district to another; or working in one district and living in another; or living in one district and paying ad valorem taxes in one or more different districts — all of which privileges make the parents members of several classes simultaneously — the evidentiary materials show that there is no correlation between rich and poor parents and high or low assessed valuation per pupil. Thus, districts of large cities with massive industrial, rail and shipping complexes, office buildings, hotels, and wholesale and retail establishments containing the visible wealth of an industrial society and an enormous assessed valuation per student, may have more poor parents per thousand than a neighboring district with low assessed valuation, or vice versa. A small district with comparatively few children may have a low per capita income but a high assessed valuation per student in comparison to a nearby larger district with high per capita income and lower assessed valuation per enrolled student. A decision of this court adopting petitioners’ position could well mandate a transfer of funds among districts so as to deprive districts of high, assessed valuation but which urgently need extra local support, and require these funds to be distributed to some districts which have little or no comparative need for them. And at the same time, such a decision could readily operate to either prohibit as unconstitutional or discourage as unwarranted that extra local support for the schools which, under the present scheme, can be provided only by special levies.

If, as petitioners assert, the statutory code for funding the schools is unconstitutional because of differences in the assessed valuation per student, then the most drastic steps must be taken by the legislature to avert a closing down of the system. Although other schemes may be available, we can think of at least seven sweeping changes in the statutory code that such a decision might demand:

1. Abolish all school districts and convert the State into a district of the whole; or

2. Abolish all special school levies, thus eliminating the root cause of so-called unconstitutional differences; or

3. Keep the separate districts but have all school moneys collected by the State and apportioned out among the districts on an equal basis per student so that each district will receive in dollars the same amount per child per day of attendance; or

4. Establish a lowest common denominator level of educational standards and prohibit individual districts from exceeding it by means of local funds; or

5. Revert to a system of education in the basic 3 R’s to the eighth grade, thus assuring a kind of mathematical uniformity of standards throughout the state; or

6. Redistrict the State into districts of approximately equal student population and apportion to each child an equal sum in dollars to be allocated by the State and at the same time prohibit local tax support; or

7. A combination of two or more or all of the above theoretical devices, including a redistribution of funds from ■districts with high assessed valuation among those with low valuations under a scheme sometimes described as power equalizing.

But whether to continue under the present statutory ■scheme or initiate a new one are decisions for the legislature and the Board of Education and the Superintendent of Public Instruction and not the courts. Suffice it to say we ,do not find that differences in assessed valuation operate to deprive taxpayers among the several districts of equal protection of the laws.

. Petitioners next contend that, when section 1 of article 9 .declares it to be “the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children” that expression must be given overwhelming and overriding application. They attach extreme import to the article “the” in the phrase “the paramount duty”, and give it a significance we think far beyond the intent with which it was employed. As heavy as the duty may be acknowledged to be: — and no one denies that free public education is one of the great responsibilities of the state — we cannot construe .the phrase to have such indomitable consequences in relation to all other parts of the State constitution. We must, in ascertaining the intent and meaning of article 9, section T, apply the generally, accepted rules of constitutional interpretation.

It is a general rule of constitutional law that fundamental'principles are of equal dignity and “neither must be so enforced as to nullify or substantially impair the other.” Dick v. United States, 208 U.S. 340, 353, 52 L. Ed. 520, 28 S. Ct. 399 (1908). “[N]o constitutional guarantee enjoys preference, so none should suffer subordination' or deletion.” Ullmann v. United States, 350 U.S. 422, 428, 100 L. Ed. 511, 76 S. Ct. 497, 53 A.L.R. 1008 (1956). Every statement in a .state • constitution must be interpreted in the light of the entire document, and not sequestered from it, and none is .to he considered alone. Bower v. Big Horn Canal Ass’n, 77 WyO. 80, 307 P.2d 593 (1957); Runyon v. Smith, 308 Ky. 73, 212 S.W.2d 521 (1948); Grantz v. Grauman, 302 S.W.2d 364 (Ky. App. 1957). Recourse should be had to the whole instrument. People ex rel. Balcom v. Mosher, 163 N.Y. 32, 57 N.E. 88 (1900). The court long ago. said that the intent of the constitution must be derived from the instrument as a .whole (State ex rel. State Capitol Comm’n v. Lister, 91 Wash. 9, 156 P. 858 (1916)), and the State constitution must be construed in the sense in which our framers understood it in 1889. In other words, “its meaning was fixed at the time it was adopted.” Boeing Aircraft Co. v. Reconstruction Fin. Corp., 25 Wn.2d 652, 658, 171 P.2d, 838, 168 A.L.R. 539 (1946). Thus, it is the function of this court, while giving full effect to all provisions of the constitution, to hármonize wherever possible any seeming conflicting provision so that the whole constitution is left intact.

Article 9, after declaring the duty, places it squarely upon the legislature and the Superintendent of Public Instruction and not upon the courts. Then, in that same article 9, it enumerates the special funds which shall be devoted exclusively to public education. What constitutes ample provision for an education, according to article 9, shall be prescribed, therefore, not by the courts but by those organs of government to whom the task is allocated by the constitution with constitutional authority to utilize the designated fluids in carrying out the duty.

No one connected with this case doubts the importance of education to the welfare of the people of this state, nor that it plays a vital role in the maintenance and furtherance of this democracy. But to give section 1, declaring the duty, the extreme significance contended for is another matter. We cannot hold this duty to be the be-all and end-all, the alpha and omega of state government. The State has other duties and responsibilities, some of equal and others of lesser importance, and the article the in the phrase the paramount duty, so. masterfully emphasized by petitioners, must be kept in interpretive context first with the remaining, sections of .article 9 and then with the entire State constitution or it will overturn a major body of constitutional law in this state without any amendment to the constitution whatever. If, as their argument implies the term “the paramount duty” to make ample provisioh for the education of all children imposes a supreme and overriding duty upon the State to the denigration or reduction of all other duties constitutionally imposed or statutorily assumed, then it follows that any tax may be imposed and any public funds, whether from the gasoline tax, the courts, public assistance appropriations, retirement systems, and revenues from all fees, licenses and franchises may be preempted and allocated to the schools by decree of this court upon a declaration of “the paramount duty.” This, of course, was not the intendment of the constitution for the phrase “the paramount duty” must be construed in context with the rest of article 9 and the entire constitution which, for example, imposed a paramount duty upon the judges to administer justice, by creating the very system in which they are to serve, and the legislature to legislate, by creating that organ of government, and the Governor and other specified officers to administer and execute the laws according to the statutes by creating an executive department in article 3.

Granted then the great importance of education to the public welfare, it should be noted that the paramount duty to make ample provision for the education of all children within its borders, without distinction or preference on account of race, color, caste, or sex, makes the legislature primarily and the Superintendent of Public Instruction — a constitutional officer whose office is established by article 3, sections 1 and 3 of the constitution — and not the judiciary the determinants of whether and in what manner this paramount duty is to be discharged. On this point, the legislature has acted.

RCW 28A.04.120 sets forth the authority and duty of the State Board of Education in carrying out the State’s constitutional duty to provide for an ample education, as follows:

In addition to any other powers and duties as provided by law, the state board of education shall:

(4) Examine and accredit secondary schools and approve, subject to the provisions of RCW 28A.02.200, private and/or parochial schools carrying out a program for any or all of the grades one through twelve: Provided, That no public or private high schools shall be placed upon the accredited list so long as secret societies are knowingly allowed to exist among its students by school officials.

(5) Make rules and regulations governing the establishment in any existing nonhigh school district of any secondary program or any new grades in grades nine through twelve. Before any such program or any new grades are established the district must obtain prior approval of the state board.

(6) Prepare such outline of study for the common schools as the board shall deem necessary, and prescribe such rules for the general government of the common schools, as shall seek to secure regularity of attendance, prevent truancy, secure efficiency, and promote the true interest of the common schools.

(8) Continuously reevaluate courses and adopt and enforce regulations within the common schools so as to meet the educational needs of students and articulate with the institutions of higher education and unify the work of the public school system.

(9) Prepare courses of instruction in physical education, and direct and enforce such instruction throughout the state, with the assistance of the school officials, intermediate school district superintendents and the boards of directors of the common schools.

(10) Carry out board powers and duties relating to the organization and reorganization of school districts under chapter 28A.57 RCW.

RCW 28A.04.130 states:

The state board of education is hereby empowered, and it shall be the duty of said board, to prescribe rules and regulations governing the classification and numbering system of school districts, except as otherwise provided by law.

W.e have never placed so. sweeping and overriding an interpretation on the phrase “the paramount duty” as petitioners now urge. Thus, in Pacific Mfg. Co. v. School Dist. 7, 6 Wash. 121, 33 P. 68 (1893), a statute imposing contingent liability, on school districts having revenue, from sources other than the common school fund established by article 9, section 3, was not held invalid but upheld. It never occurred to this court at the time that this rule might impair the State’s capability in discharging “the paramount duty.”

In State ex rel. DuPont-Fort Lewis School Dist. 7 v. Bruno, 62 Wn.2d 790, 795, 384 P.2d 608 (1963), this court declared that article 9, section 1 of the State constitution “imposes upon the state the paramount duty of making adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders” but that section 2 “commands the legislature to provide a general and uniform system .of public schools, and Art. 3, § 22, entrusts to the superintendent supervisory authority over all matters pertaining to the public schools.” This court then made a' comprehensive review of the entire statutory structure, citing most; of the statutes which operated to create, maintain and operate the public school system, including those statutes establishing and providing for school districts, superintendents’ offices, employment of teachers and administrative personnel, the preparation of school budgets, and a host of other things related to operating the public schools. We considered at that time the. various powers of and limitation upon public officers having to do with school operation and administration. At no time in the consideration of that case was it suspected that the whole statutory structure for funding and disbursing school moneys was void for unconstitutionality or that the State was failing to discharge the paramount duty.

We have held, too, that school districts have a right, under section 2, to receive State funds when appropriated by. the legislature (Island County Comm. on Assessment Ratios v. Department of Revenue, 81 Wn.2d 193, 500 P.2d 756 (1972)), but not that added local funding renders the appropriation unconstitutional. Again, in Carroll v. Bruno, 81 Wn.2d 82, 499 P.2d 876 (1972), the statute (RCW 28A.41.130) authorizing the State superintendent to treat 85 percent of the forest funds paid over to the affected local districts as part of the State general scheme of equalization, in effect declared a great power in the State superintendent to prescribe the mode and method of State allocations and largely to implement statutes controlling the distribution of State equalization money. And this court passed directly on the question of whether the State could preempt local taxes for school purposes in Newman v. Schlarb, 184 Wash. 147, 153-54, 50 P.2d 36 (1935), and in that opinion amplified the term “paramount duty.” The question there was whether a county tax of 5 cents per day for each student violated either article 11, section 12, prohibiting the State from imposing taxes on counties for county purposes, or violated the equal protection provision of the Fourteenth Amendment. Holding the tax as one for State purposes and in discharge of a “paramount duty,” the court said:

The state, being engaged in the exercise of a paramount duty, could, of course, select any method that it saw fit in order to discharge that duty. Consequently, it reserved to the proper state officers the general supervision of the system and entrusted to its various political subdivisions certain functions and details in which they were particularly interested and concerned.

Consequently, the state, through the legislature, may not only require such subdivisions to levy taxes for public purposes, but may also fix the amount to be levied by them, provided that such purposes, though of a general nature and for the benefit of the whole people, result in special benefits to the particular subdivision.

Thus, it is the legislature and the State superintendent upon whom the constitution and statutes impose the responsibility of discharging the paramount duty of the State (1) to make ample provision for the education of all children; (2) to prescribe and enforce the minimal standards necessary to constitute ample provision; and (3) to allocate State equalization funds however they may be described so that every child has access to a “general and uniform system of public schools” without “distinction or preference on account of race, color, caste, or sex.”

A sensible construction of the meaning of “the paramount duty,” therefore, is that, while it imposes a direct duty upon the State, the nature and extent of that duty and the means of carrying it out rest upon the legislature and the State superintendent. It means, too, that every child, in making use of the ample provision for an education, has a constitutional right to be free from discrimination or preferences accorded to others on account of race, color, caste, or sex in the discharge of that duty. Thus, although the State, under section 1, article 9, must assume the duty of making ample provision for the education of all children and is required to do so without discrimination as to race, sex, or national origin, constitutionally speaking that duty or function is the same as any other major duty or function of state government. It is to be discharged in consonance with the Fourteenth Amendment and our State’s own equivalent thereof (article 1, section 12) for the two provisions in this jurisdiction have the same meaning.

Petitioners contend that, because of the paramount duty, the State’s duty to administer the educational laws is so much greater under the State constitution that compliance with the Fourteenth Amendment may fall short of compliance with the State’s own equal protection clause. We are of the opinion that the two provisions have the same significance and are to be construed alike. If the State’s statutes controlling the funding and operation of the common schools are repugnant to the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, they are similarly repugnant to the equal protection clause, and vice versa. In stating this principle, we adhere to a line of precedent which has steadfastly held the privileges and immunities clause of the State constitution (article 1, section 12), to mean the same as the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In Markham Advertising Co. v. State, 73 Wn.2d 405, 427, 439 P.2d 248 (1968), we said:

The plaintiffs contend that the Act is contrary to the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution and the privileges and immunities clause of the state constitution, article 1, section 12. These provisions have the same import, and we apply them as one.

Quite recently, this court, despite dissenting opinions on other points, unanimously agreed on the point that the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution (Amendment Fourteen) and the privileges and immunities clause of Const., art. 1, § 12, should be applied as one in DeFunis v. Odegaard, 82 Wn.2d 11, 37, n.16, 507 P.2d 1169 (1973). We were unanimous that this was a prevailing and long-standing rule of application, and one made inevitable in this jurisdiction by a long/line of decisions.

In case after case, this court has given the same application to the equal privileges and immunities provisions of article 1, section 12, of the State constitution and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal constitution and has given them both the same meaning. Thus, in Sparkman & McLean Co. v. Govan Inv. Trust, 78 Wn.2d 584, 478 P.2d 232 (1970), the court treated the two provisions as indistinguishable. Again, in State ex rel. Rhodes v. Cook, 72 Wn.2d 436, 441, 433 P.2d 677 (1967), we thought the principle so well established and free of argument that we felt it unnecessary to develop a supporting rationale and treated the two as one, saying:

The state and federal constitutional provisions for equal protection of the laws require that class legislation must apply alike to all persons within a class, and that reasonable grounds for the distinction must exist between those within and those without a designated class. Clark v. Dwyer, 56 Wn.2d 425, 353 P.2d 941 (1960).

Accord, State ex rel. O’Brien v. Towne, 64 Wn.2d 581, 392 (1964); Mahnkey v. King, 5 Wn. App. 555, 489 P.2d 361, 51 A.L.R.3d 1331 (1971).

Declaring this principle, that both constitutional provisions have the same significance, leads inexorably to the principle that statutes do not offend either constitution unless they are invidiously discriminatory. Markham Advertising Co. v. State, supra; Seattle v. See, 67 Wn.2d 475, 408 P.2d 262 (1965). And the record does not show that any child in this state — much less petitioners’ children — suffer an invidious discrimination; nor is it denied that, if such invidious discrimination exists, a remedy also is available by bringing suit in equity directly against the district or State to compel that the lacking opportunity be supplied.

On the question, then, of equal protection for taxpayers, school districts, parents and children under both constitutions, uniformity based on adjustments of assessed valuations per pupil, through one device or another, not only cannot be achieved but would be undesirable and would likely create great disparity in educational opportunities afforded by the several districts. Whatever variations in educational opportunities exist, as earlier shown, derive not mainly from variances in assessed valuation nor from the enactment, rejection or even failure to present special school millages but instead from the differences in the size of the districts, their geography and location and the differences in the aspirations of the people of the district to provide opportunities beyond those encompassed in the paramount duty of the State.

That the State has, within the past 10 years, dropped its percentage of contributions to state school revenue is due not to any diminution in its purpose to carry out its paramount duty, but to increases in the local contributions. Thus, while the State’s gross contributions have increased enormously, the districts’ contributions have increased even more so that the ratio of State to local funds has changed.

The table of data at page 710, supra, supplied to the clerk of this court from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, publicly available and most of which is included in the data put into evidence, demonstrates the steady increase in State contributions vis-a-vis an even greater increase in local contributions. Parenthetically, even these comprehensive figures do not show the entire costs of operating the schools of this state, for they do not include the State’s appropriation to the teachers’ retirement system.²

An examination of these figures (table, page 710), starting with the school year 1964-65, and using round numbers, will show that the State contributed $215 million out of a total of $363 million, and the local property including special levies contributed $93 million. During that year, with all other sources included in the total, such as the real estate excise, federal funds and other local funds, the State put up 59.2 percent of the total. By 1969-70, however, despite a more than 50 percent increase in its contribution from 1964-65, i.e., from $215 million to $332 million, the State’s total percentage dropped from 59.2 percent to 50.7 percent. In the 1969-70 school year, the State put in $332 million of a grand total of $655 million, but its percentage of the total school expenditures dropped. Part of this reduced ratio is due to the enactment of the 2-mill law, i.e., 2 mills of real estate revenue placed on local property and collected for the State and then redistributed by the State back to the several districts. But primarily the changing ratio between local funds and State funds is mainly due not to any reduction in the State’s total contribution, which had in fact increased over 50 percent in the interim, but to an increase in special millage revenues from $32.6 million in 1964 to $97.8 million in 1969.

The ratio of state-to-local school revenues continued to change as the special millage total increased in 1973 to $199.8 million, even though the legislature steadfastly' increased its total contributions year by year from $360 million in 1970-71 to $399 million in 1973-74. Steady increases in the special millage totals, federal funds, regular local taxes including the 2 mills collected by the State, culminating in a grand total of $907 million for the schools for the 1973-74 year, despite regular increased appropriations from the State, made a declining State ratio inevitable. Thus, despite nearly $400 million appropriated by the legislature, its percentage of the total, according to the table (page 710) dropped to 43.9 percent.

If, as petitioners contend, the differences created by the State’s reduced percentage, despite steadily increasing contributions, make the whole system of funding unconstitutional and void, the remedy may not be to petitioners’ liking: A drop of a hundred million dollars in special millage revenue from $219 million to $100 million will inore than restore the State’s ratio and increase its percentage well beyond 50 percent.

Not to be overlooked either is the factor of steadily rising State contributions to the common schools in the face of a steadily declining enrollment. Thus, according to Public School Enrollment by Grade, State of Washington Pocket Data Book, page 87 (1973), released by the Superintendent of Public Instruction, including kindergarten through grade 12, the school enrollment total of 804,753 in 1968 increased to 820,591 in 1969, but dropped to 817,712 in 1970, decreased to 805,049 in 1971, to 790,502 in 1972, and to 788,324 in 1973, and reduced to 785,457 in 1974.

Accordingly, recognizing the vital duties assumed by the State to educate the children within its borders, we conclude that the method of school financing now employed is constitutional and a valid exercise of legislative power. It is a system in nearly universal use throughout the nation for it is used in about 49 of the 50 states. It is, we think, a proper method of discharging that duty — both pragmatically, for it has met the tests of experience and usage, and constitutionally, for it meets the standard of the latest authoritative word on the subject as stated in San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 36 L. Ed. 2d 16, 93 S. Ct. 1278 (1973).

Whether our State common school funding and disbursing system complies with the Fourteenth Amendment and article 1, section 12, is, as earlier concluded, to be decided on the premise that both provisions have the same significance and should be applied alike. This brings us to the leading case on the issue before us, San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, supra, a direct and controlling ruling, we think, that state school funding and disbursement statutes such as ours do not offend the equal protection clause of the federal constitution, and therefore are not repugnant to this State’s equal protection clause, article 1, section 12.

In that case, the United States Supreme Court reversed the judgment of a 3-judge District Court which had held the Texas school finance system unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The trial court found that, because a major source of operating revenue for the operation of the public schools derived from local property taxes and the taxable wealth varied between school districts, the children in the so-called “rich” districts had a greater chance for high expenditures in their behalf than did the children in the so-called “poor” districts. Reversing the District Court, and upholding the constitutionality of the Texas school sytem, the court said, inter alia, at pages 23,25 and 28:

Apart from the unsettled and disputed question whether the quality of education may be determined by the amount of money expended for it, a sufficient answer to appellees’ argument is that, at least where wealth is involved, the Equal Protection Clause does not require absolute equality or precisely equal advantages. Nor,. indeed, in view of the infinite variables affecting the educational process, can any system assure equal quality of education except in the most relative sense. . . .

For these two reasons — the absence of any evidence that the financing system discriminates against any definable category of “poor” people or that it results in the absolute deprivation of education — the disadvantaged class is not susceptible of identification in traditional terms.

We thus conclude that the Texas system does not operate to the peculiar disadvantage of any suspect class.

(Footnotes omitted.)

Characterizing the history of school financing in Texas as a perpetual state effort to enlarge and improve and expand public education, the court added, at page 39:

The Texas system of school financing is not unlike the federal legislation involved in Katzenbach [Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641, 16 L. Ed. 2d 828, 86 S. Ct. 1717 (1966)] in this regard. Every step leading to the establishment of the system Texas utilizes today — including the decisions permitting localities to tax and expend locally, and creating and continuously expanding state aid —was implemented in an effort to extend public education and to improve its quality. Of course, every reform that benefits some more than others may be criticized for what it fails to accomplish. But we think it plain that, in substance, the thrust of the Texas system is affirmative and reformatory and, therefore, should be scrutinized under judicial principles sensitive to the nature of the State’s efforts and to the rights reserved to the States under the Constitution.

Petitioners allude to Serrano v. Priest, 5 Cal. 3d 584, 487 P.2d 1241, 96 Cal. Rptr. 601 (1971), in which the Supreme Court of California had declared the school funding statutes of California unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause, but we do not accept this as a controlling precedent here. Whether the Serrano decision will operate to void and prohibit all local funding of the public schools cannot, of course, at this juncture be ascertained, but it portends that possibility if local funding continues in that state to engender what the court concluded to be a system providing far greater educational opportunities in one district than it does in another. Nor do we think Robinson v. Cahill, 118 N.J. Super. 223, 287 A.2d 187 (1972), holding the New Jersey school funding system unconstitutional provides a controlling precedent for this jurisdiction.

Petitioners claim that the legislature has unconstitutionally failed to establish a “general and uniform system of public schools” as prescribed in article 9, section 2, of the State constitution. But we find this position not well taken. That school districts vary in size and taxable property does not signify that the system of public schools is neither general nor uniform. In determining whether the State has provided what the framers of the constitution meant by a general and uniform system, we should give weight to legislative interpretation extending over a long period of time. State ex rel. Todd v. Yelle, 7 Wn.2d 443, 110 P.2d 162 (1941). And while not controlled by it, we ought to consider the history of events and proceedings preceding and contemporary to the adoption of the constitution. Yelle v. Bishop, 55 Wn.2d 286, 347 P.2d 1081 (1959).

The first legislature after statehood enacted in 1889 an act to “establish a general uniform system of Common Schools in the State of Washington.” Laws of 1889-90, ch. 12, p. 348, title of the act. That very statute, the first in a long line, created a funding system for the support of the common schools similar to the present system now under challenge. Section 53 of that statute made provision for “special taxes” of a nature resembling present special levies. That the public schools are partly funded with local property taxes does not deprive the system, we think, of those constitutional qualities described as general and uniform — for it is the system which must be kept general and uniform under that provision and not the 320 districts. A general and uniform system, that is, a system which, within reasonable constitutional limits of equality, makes ample provision for the education of all children, cannot be based upon exact equality of funding per child because it takes more money in some districts per child to provide about the same level of educational opportunity than it does in others. Thus, the record shows that all states of the Union, except Hawaii, recognize that taxable property values per pupil vary among the districts because expenditures per pupil vary, too. Uniformity of size and property values among school districts is not necessary to satisfy the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment (San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, supra) nor are they essential, we think, to a general and uniform system.

Although we do not find the ruling of the California Supreme Court in Serrano v. Priest, supra, to have controlling effect in deciding whether Washington’s statutory system for funding the public schools is constitutional, we think that court properly declared the law in deciding that the California system did not, under the constitution, lack uniformity. Answering an argument similar to that made by petitioners here as to the failure to provide a general and uniform system, the court in Serrano v. Priest, supra, said, at pages 595-96:

We have held that the word “system,” as used in article IX, section 5, implies a “unity of purpose as well as an entirety of operation, and the direction to the legislature to provide ‘a’ system of common schools means one system which shall be applicable to all the common schools within the state.” (Kennedy v. Miller (1893) 97 Cal. 429, 432 [32 P. 558].) However, we have never interpreted the constitutional provision to require equal school spending; we have ruled only that the educational system must be uniform in terms of the prescribed course of study and educational progression from grade to grade. (Piper v. Big Pine School Dist. (1924) 193 Cal. 664, 669, 673 [22P. 926].)

A general and uniform system, we think, is, at the present time, one in which every child in the state has free access to certain minimum and reasonably standardized educational and instructional facilities and opportunities to at least the 12th grade — a system administered with that degree of uniformity which enables a child to transfer from one district to another within the same grade without substantial loss of credit or standing and with access by each student of whatever grade to acquire those skills and training that are reasonably understood to be fundamental and basic to a sound education. We are of the opinion, therefore, that this record fails to show that the legislature has not provided and that the Superintendent of Public Instruction does not administer a general and uniform system of public schools in this state.

It is now both fashionable and customary in judicial circles, in discussing school financing, to point out the great purpose which the states have assumed to provide free public education, and how vital this is to a democratic society, and rarely can one be found who argues against free public education or denies its worth. Without repeating the premise in extenso, we agree with that view and all of its implications. What is lacking in this case, however, is proof that the State does not make available to any of petitioner children reasonably equal opportunity for an ample education; nor is it denied that if it be shown in a proper case that some children are deprived of this opportunity they are without a remedy to compel that the opportunity be afforded them. In concluding that the State’s statutory system for funding and operating the public schools is constitutional and should be upheld, we do not hold that in a proper case the courts will not provide a remedy for any child who shows that the State has failed to make ample provision for his or her education, free from all racial, religious or so-called caste distinction.

Petitioners’ claim, that the entire statutory structure of public school funding and spending is unconstitutional and void, therefore, is not sustained.

The petition herein for writs of mandate and prohibition are, therefore, denied.

Hunter and Hamilton, JJ., concur.

1 “Wherefore, Petitioners respectfully petition this Court as follows:

“A. That defendant-respondents, and each of them, be directed to reallocate the funds available for financial support of the school system, including, without limitation, funds derived from the taxation of real property, and to otherwise restructure the financing scheme in such a manner as not to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and' the Constitution of the State of Washington.

“B. That defendant-respondents be prohibited from allocating- the funds available for financial support of the school system, including funds derived from the taxation of real property, to be allocated and in such a manner as to violate the Constitution of the State of Washington and the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution.

“C. That the Court declare that the financing scheme is void and without force or effect as repugnant to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and repugnant to the Constitution of the State of Washington.” , ;

2 Following is data supplied to the clerk of this court from the Washington State Teachers’ Retirement System showing legislative appropriations on behalf of the state for the teachers’ retirement system in each of the past 10 years;

1964- 65 $ 13,697,000.00

1965- 66 18.651.844.00

1966- 67 19.093.529.00

1967- 68 25.601.026.00

1968- 69 21.809.588.00

1969- 70 32.257.000. 00

1970- 71 29,263,006.36

1971- 72 20.136.000. 00

1972- 73 35.978.000. 00

1973- 74 41,130.481.95