"By almost any measure, children in Kentucky are  in an educational crisis and that crisis is most profound for black children," writes new Black Alliance for Educational Options state director Mendell Grinter in today's Lexington Herald-Leader.

Certainly, the Bluegrass Institute's analysis of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) indicates that, as Grinter puts it: "In the  face of such staggering data, the status quo is hard to defend."

While empowering parents -- especially low-income, minority parents -- to have choices in where they send their children to school might not be the silver bullet that fixes all of Kentucky's education woes, he rightly observes that "the current system lacks charters' 'do-or-die' push to succeed.

"Absent any sense of genuine urgency, too many traditional schools have failed to meet students' needs -- year after year -- and the students themselves bear the only real repercussions."

Minter joins the Bluegrass Institute in urging lawmakers to put passage of public charter school legislation on their radars, noting that increasing the educational quality afforded to all children "is our most urgent priority."

"It's time we stop propping up failing schools and worrying about adults in the system and started focusing on our children. We need bold, decisive leaders who are willing to put politics and fear aside and put children first," Minter writes.