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Substantial literature suggests that parent participation is beneficial to student success. Latino parents, however, have traditionally been underrepresented in their children's schools. Historically, this phenomenon has been explicated using deficit perspectives which have viewed Latino parents as culpable for their children's academic and social failure, arguments which have failed to capture the complexity of the relationship between these parents and the public school system. This article is a parent activist's narrative. Integrating personal experience and parental voices, it examines tensions in the relationship between Latino parents and the public schools. The author suggests that Latino parents can resist, challenge, and even transform contradictory and "oppressive" school policies and practices, particularly when accompanied by political consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latino parents trust a secondary school system that often misclassifies and misdirects their children. Survey results from three high school sites indicate that Latino parents trust that the school is doing what is best for their children, and they do not understand the importance of being an advocate for their children. Important curriculum decisions are being made for Latino students without informing their parents. Rather than pointing to a lack of expectations on the part of the parents, it would be more fruitful to consider what is happening to the students inside the school setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]