The strong relationship between education and civic engagement is what leads Fraga and Frost (2010) to describe the U.S. school system as a "center of democratic governance" (p. 119). For immigrant communities, schools also serve to foster political socialization and incorporation. This chapter considers schools' democratic roles from an input perspective--the degree to which those making education policy are representative of the population as a whole--and an output perspective--the degree to which schools produce equitable outcomes and, therefore informed, democratic citizens. At the heart of this analysis is the normative contention that education policy should result from a truly inclusive democratic decision-making process and therefore that its success should be judged by the equity of its outcomes. The author argues that Latinos' current educational trajectory has the potential to lead the United States to become an increasingly bifurcated society, with a shrinking group of elites that have access to educational opportunities and a growing set of mainly Latino and African American nonelites who have limited access to educational success and therefore few opportunities for socioeconomic mobility. In their book "The Latino Education Crisis," Patricia Gandara and Frances Contreras (2009) also raise this concern and argue that the challenges Latinos face in education are detrimental to all Americans. The author supports their contention and emphasizes the important political and policy consequences this educational inequality has for American society as a whole. (Contains 7 notes.)