When you read that the NAACP is suing New York City over the issue of charter schools, it is not because we are opposed to charter schools. It is because we have come too far and struggled too long to let resources be distributed in a way that amply funds charter schools while starving traditional public schools, which are sometimes located in the very same building.

NAACP Chair Roslyn Brock, in Sunday’s speech to its national convention, essentially proving that the NAACP doesn’t realize that charter schools generally get less in per-pupil funding than their traditional counterparts and must actively seek and prove its worth to the philanthropic community in order to fill the gap. But then, the NAACP isn’t exactly interested in school reform. Or in overhauling American public education for black families.

The issue was neither about another stage of the growing right-wing contempt for collective bargaining and organized labor in general, nor was it about the ideological differences regarding charter schools and traditional public schools intended to serve so-called minority children. It was about quality performance above all else. It was about facing the reality of what’s been happening in the public schools that the Education Department chose to close due to underperformance.

Stanley Crouch, who, unlike the NAACP, gets it.