Judge John Dietz ruled that the state of Texas is failing to provide adequate funding to its public schools and is violating the state constitution. He also ruled that school choice and vouchers are not a substitute for needed funding.
The Legislature cut school spending by $5.3 Billion in 2011 and never restored the cuts after the economy recovered.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What are the practical implications of this ruling? Anyone from Texas have any thoughts?
I am not sure about practical implications since this is going to be appealed and won’t be resolved until late 2015. The use of property taxes to pay for schools is a big problem using the state designed “Robin Hood” plan. Here is a brief summary of the issue: The wealthy districts won’t approve property tax increases because they know a large share goes to poor districts to off-set imbalances, and so the wealthy communities backdoor funding into their schools through grants, booster clubs and PTAs but the districts want to have access to their own funds. The poor districts bear the brunt of all budget cuts because parents don’t make up for the cuts and they don’t have the property tax base to contribute enough to fund their budgets. Voters in poor districts don’t approve property tax increases because they can’t afford to pay more property tax. The districts are stuck with unfunded state mandates for testing and class sizes and poorly designed VAM programs and no way to raise money to fund them. This is my take as a parent and taxpayer. I am unwilling to vote to raise my property taxes until my district does away with VAM and the associated testing. I am sick of the “accountability” movement.
“After the economy recovered”? We’re now talking about the future in the past tense?