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Every year, around this time, states and districts throughout the nation release their official testing results. Schools are closed and reputations are made or broken by these data. But this annual tradition is, in some places, becoming a charade.

It's a persistent and troubling problem: the gap between white students and students of color in academic achievement. There are many theories about how to resolve these disparities, from interventions with parents, increased accountability for teachers, school programs and testing, and others. Guests: Diane Ravitch and Angel Harris

Activists who are working most closely with students and schools, whether they like Ackerman or not, say they feel buffeted and appalled by the behavior of those in charge this summer.

In a weekend interview with GRADEBOOK's Jeffrey Solochek, Michael Kooi, the executive director of Florida's Office of Independent Education and Parental Choice. Kooi played the interview close to the vest and effectively explained how the state's new initiatives would work. The interview would have been  innocuous had it not for the way he decided  to answer the offer to make an additional comment choice at the end of the interview. Kooi chose to spin the fact that 15 of 31 failures in Florida last year were from charter schools - including the one where his boss, Governor Rick Scott signed SB736

A decade ago, the No Child Left Behind Act ushered in an era of federally driven educational accountability focused on narrowing the chasms between the test scores and graduation rates of students of different incomes and races. The result was a whole new way of speaking and thinking about the issue: "Achievement gaps" became reformers' catch phrase, and closing those gaps became the goal of American education policy.

In essence, the law creates a parents' union, which advocates say will provide powerful and needed counterweight to teachers' unions and district bureaucracies. If 51 percent of parents in a persistently failing school sign a petition, they can force the school to change into a charter, close it entirely or replace the principal and teachers.

It has been nearly 50 years since Michael Harrington wrote The Other America, pulling the curtain back on invisible poverty within the United States. If he were writing today, Harrington would find the same populations he described then: young, marginally educated people who drift in and out of low-pay, dead-end jobs, and older displaced workers, unable to find work as industries transform and shops close. But he would find more of them, especially the young, their situation worsened by further economic restructuring and globalization. And while the poor he wrote about were invisible in a time of abundance, ours are visible in a terrible recession, although invisible in most public policy. In fact, the poor are drifting further into the dark underbelly of American capitalism.

All three schools, which were founded by Edward Calderon-Melendez, the network's chief executive, have been under investigation by the office of Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman of New York for several months because of questions about their financial management. They face closing if they do not follow the city and state's recommendations in the next year.

Last week's National Affairs essay "Our Achievement Gap Mania" has raised a little ire. One thing that might be useful is to situate the debate a bit, both in terms of how we got here and why I have the temerity to suggest that the moral philosophy behind gap-closing is less compelling than proponents seem to imagine.

Few observers doubt that Teach For America (TFA) has high aspirations. Established in 1990, TFA strives to close persistent racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps in U.S. public education by recruiting high-achieving college graduates to teach for two years in low-income urban and rural schools. In recent years, applications to TFA have soared, especially at highly selective colleges. In 2009-10, for example, 18% of Harvard University's seniors applied to the program. Proposing to expand its teaching corps from 7,300 to 13,000 over the next five years, TFA recently won $50 million in the federal i3 (Investing in Innovation) competition and succeeded in raising $10 million in matching funds.

Governor Jindal is moving to assert complete control of both the legislature and BESE. A recent article in the Advocate describes Jindal's plans to hand pick all key legislative leadership positions. In addition, in an Aug 31 article, The Advocate carries a story about a new PAC formed by Lane Grigsby, Rolf McCollister and Jindal's former Chief Counsel who will commit up to one million dollars on the BESE takeover effort. With no viable opponent to his own reelection bid the Governor aims to help elect more close allies to both the legislature and BESE. Jindal wants no less than total control of state government and the public education system.

It should surprise no one that only 34 percent of New Yorkers approve of Michael Bloomberg's education policies, the policy area within which the Mayor most hoped to create a legacy. The Mayor not only introduced numerous questionable initiatives- ranging from school closings, to preferential treatment of charter schools, to attempts to rate teacher performance based on student test scores-he did so with an arrogant disregard not only for the most experienced teachers and administrators in the system, but of parents and community leaders and elected officials who tried to make their voices heard in matters of educational policy.

Moderated by Charlayne Hunter-Gault Essence, Africa Bureau Chief, and author of New News Out of Africa: Uncovering the African Renaissance Lawrence D. Bobo W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University James P. Comer Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine's Child Study Center Angel L. Harris Associate Professor of Sociology and of African American Studies, Princeton University Diane Ravitch Research Professor of Education, New York University Michelle A. Rhee Founder and CEO, StudentsFirst

The public schools are being punished for the achievement gap, which they did not create and cannot close. Mr. Gibboney urges educators to rise up and fight to protect public education and democracy, which will both collapse if our society refuses to take the steps necessary to eliminate poverty.

Earlier this week it was reported that the Michigan Legislature had gone "berserk." Today, they continued their "berserk" assault on workers in Michigan by pushing forward with a series of bills that strip workers of basic protections. On a close 55-53 vote today, the MI House passed HB 4929 which prohibits the deduction of union dues by public school employers. The bill was fast-tracked through the House after being introduced Tuesday. I don't know about you, but I'm glad they took the time to think through legislation that will impair the ability of teachers to collectively bargain and protect their rights and the conditions of their classrooms. Tell me how this improves education?  Tell me how this creates jobs?  Tell me how this "puts more money in my pocket?"

Uneducated Guesses challenges everything our policymakers thought they knew about education and education reform, from how to close the achievement gap in public schools to admission standards for top universities. In this explosive book, Howard Wainer uses statistical evidence to show why some of the most widely held beliefs in education today--and the policies that have resulted--are wrong. He shows why colleges that make the SAT optional for applicants end up with underperforming students and inflated national rankings, and why the push to substitute achievement tests for aptitude tests makes no sense. Wainer challenges the thinking behind the enormous rise of advanced placement courses in high schools, and demonstrates why assessing teachers based on how well their students perform on tests--a central pillar of recent education reforms--is woefully misguided. He explains why college rankings are often lacking in hard evidence, why essay questions on tests disadvantage women, why the most grievous errors in education testing are not made by testing organizations--and much more.

Weeks after Indiana began the nation's broadest school voucher program, thousands of students have transferred from public to private schools, causing a spike in enrollment at some Catholic institutions that were only recently on the brink of closing for lack of pupils.

Detroit Public Schools expects to shed nearly 40 percent of its teachers in the next four years to help close a $327 million deficit, yet projects a loss of just 6,000 students under a state-approved fiscal blueprint. The district would cut more than 1,500 teachers by fall 2015, according to a deficit-elimination plan obtained by The Detroit News. Most of the reduction - nearly 1,100 teachers - would occur next fall as DPS moves some of its weakest schools into a statewide recovery system, the Education Achievement Authority.

Now that the Senate is getting close to consideration of a bill to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, groups are beginning to release their ideas on key aspects of the law, including teacher quality.

New York City has plans to close 22 "failing" schools, taking the view that if those schools can't do right by their students, they shouldn't continue to exist. Because students deserve better, and if you don't agree with what Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his assorted education chancellors think is best, then you don't care about kids.