Explaining the social function of schooling through maintaining, reproducing, and increasing inequalities does not provide a clear framework for what can be done to help the disadvantaged benefit from education. In order to break this vicious circle of describing deficiencies and perpetuating, it is necessary to focus more on the recovery and compensatory function of education. This qualitative study, conducted with grounded theory, explores mechanisms within schools that can compensate for disadvantages that arise outside of school. These mechanisms were defined through the data obtained in a small city in Turkey from interviews focusing on the schooling practices of 35 educators, 19 of whom had administrative backgrounds and 16 of whom were teachers. The compensatory function of schooling operates in a gradual process of supporting the students to engage in school and become active in school. In the inclusion process, all the student's shortcomings are ignored and the student is seen as neutral. In the support phase, macro reformist and central policies are ignored, and support is rather individualized and concretized. This analysis suggested that strengthening compensatory role of schooling could help overcome barriers that students from disadvantaged backgrounds experience in educational attainment.