The Knoxville News Sentinel has launched a new website focused on local school issues. It's called School Matters [1], and has blogs, forums, and social networking features. You'll notice some familiar names from around the Knoxville blogosphere among participants.

According to the site info, it is built on Ning [2], a hosted social networking service with free or business/private label branding options. Ning looks like a pretty slick package.