Yesterday, the Courier-Journal published an editorial berating the Bluegrass Institute’s position on school choice. Tne Bluegrass Institute’s communication director, Jim Waters, is the Commonwealth’s biggest cheerleader for introducing the concept of school choice. Here’s some of what the Courier-Journal had to say:

The institute’s latest missive says, “Don’t be surprised if Democrats wind up leading the charge for school choice in Kentucky. They have done it in other states.” The reference is to school-choice, tax credit and school voucher experiments in Arizona, Iowa and Wisconsin.

Will this prediction be as credible as the institute’s claim, in 2005, that it quickly would gather 100,000 signatures from supporters of legislation to let children attend schools of their choice, at state expense? Eighteen months later, that effort was still a failure.

So if the Bluegrass Institute is nothing but a puddle on the road to real education reform, why mention it at all? Well, it gives us a chance to contrast the group’s libertarian anti-government negativism against the fact-based report just released by the Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center, which said, “Using 11 educational indicators we examine(d) Kentucky’s progress from 1992 to 2005 and conclude that we have made substantial progress, both in an absolute sense as well as relative to the nation.”

The reality of the situation is that both political parties in Kentucky would rather avoid experimenting with school choice because they may lose precious votes from Kentucky Education Association members during election time. The Courier-Journal unfairly dismisses the idea of school choice because of one organization’s failure to deliver on it’s promise to complete an overambitious petition drive.

The C-J editorial does point out this sobering fact:

While Kentucky may still “trails two-thirds of the states,” it’s no longer at the bottom of the educational ladder, in spite of all the obstacles to its climb.

So, does this mean Kentuckians should settle for the Commonwealth being behind in education that most of the states? At least the Bluegrass Institute is offering a possible solution, unlike most politicians and journalists in Kentucky.