Mainstream education often misunderstands the ways that some rural black families display involvement in their children's lives. Teachers may tend to attribute children's academic struggles to what they perceived as a lack of care, concern, and involvement of the families. Such views could keep children from reaching and exceeding their potential, the author posits, on account of poor treatment, low expectations, and low standards. Instead, the author says, it is important for educators to understand the many ways that families negotiate the political and social structures of schools, the lessons they teach their children, and they ways that they engage in their children's lives that often go unnoticed.