This article is based on a team ethnographic study in the province of Yauyos in the Peruvian Andes. It focuses on rural education and the inequalities surrounding it. Teachers and parents exchange mutual recriminations as they seek to explain why some children have greater difficulties than others and why urban schools achieve superior results as shown in tests and verified in popular imaginaries. We examine two arenas where cultural misreadings, compensatory mechanisms and children's agency come into play. One concerns verbal expression and classroom participation. The other concerns extracurricular mutual support networks and complements, from homework help to exposure to urban settings. Parents, teachers, and children all shared aspirations for children's academic success. How that can be achieved, against high odds, is a source of tensions that the research documented and is the subject of ongoing debate in the Peruvian education sector.