ABSTRACT
There are no existing organizational structures in public schooling that guide students through both a quality and an equitable K-12 educational career path; that difficult task is the work of parents, and mostly mothers. There are conflicting messages coming from educational literature on what parents' roles in their children's schooling should be. In exchange for better opportunities, educational institutions still expect parents to support the work of schools as part of their everyday lives and responsibilities raising their children. When parents make choosing schools a part of their work coordinating their children's educations, they necessarily become entangled in the existing inequitable schooling structures and practices historically related to race and class relations. Clearly, there are grounds for reexamining educational policy and policy effects from the position in which parents find themselves when they choose schools for their children.
