LITTLE ROCK, ARK. ? Arkansas has failed its 450,000 public school children by not devoting enough money to schools and distributing the money unfairly, the state Supreme Court said Thursday.

The justices gave the Legislature until Jan. 1, 2004, to develop an adequate school funding formula. The state now spends $1.7 billion a year on education, with its 310 school districts adding their own funds.

Public school students are entitled to a “general, suitable and efficient” education system, and the state has failed to provide one, the justices said in a case that, in various forms, goes back decades.

Gov. Mike Huckabee said the ruling would require a “total revamping” of the education funding system.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” he said.

The justices upheld a lower court’s ruling that the school funding system violates the equal protection clause of the state constitution.

The high court referred to the state’s “abysmal rankings” in key national education indicators ” last in education expenditures, 49th in adult high school graduates, below the national average in standardized tests in math and reading, near the bottom among states in teacher pay.

The court did not order specific changes. Some experts have said Arkansas would have to spend up to $1 billion more a year to fulfill suggestions laid down in May 2001 by Pulaski County Judge Collins Kilgore.

The court upheld much of what Kilgore ordered but said he went too far in ordering the creation of preschool programs.

Thursday’s decision was the third time in 20 years that the state’s school funding formula was declared unconstitutional.