Within the past month, the NAACP and other old-school civil rights groups have weighed in on the nation’s achievement gap and President Barack Obama’s school reform efforts — and have come out on the wrong side. This has resulted in questions about their relevance — and the appropriateness of their tactics — in an age in which black parents have come out strongly for charter schools and other reform measures that give parents power over the quality of education for their kids. It also stands in contrast to the work of onetime fellow-traveler Al Sharpton (whose own embrace of school reform has been chronicled here) and a new generation of educators such as Dr. Steve Perry, the CNN commentator and principal of Capital Prep charter school in Connecticut.

Watch this video from last year — long before the current debate over the role of civil rights groups (and their ivory tower allies among the Kahlenberg-Orfield crowd) in education — and consider whether the NAACP and other groups have outlived their usefulness. And, whatever your thoughts, how can they become relevant again.