Tennessee’s lingering school funding trial is reset before a new court was originally published by Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization covering public education. Sign up for their newsletters here: bit.ly/tnchalk.
A major lawsuit challenging whether Tennessee adequately funds public schools will be among the first to go to trial under a new law that is reshaping the state’s judiciary.
The trial in the 6-year-old case had been scheduled to begin in November before a single judge. But several recent court orders have reset the proceedings for February before a panel of three judges representing East, Middle and West Tennessee.
And instead of being heard in Nashville – where constitutional challenges to Tennessee laws have traditionally been hashed out – the three-week trial will take place in a courtroom in Murfreesboro, a university town south of Nashville.
The changes come as the result of a new law that creates a statewide court to hear thorny matters related to state government. How the reshuffled judiciary could affect the trial’s outcome is being closely watched regionally and nationally, partly to see whether partisan politics come into play.