If Mary held school and education to be so important for herself, why did she not make sure that her children felt the same way in The Other Wes Moore?

The perspectives of parents and children often vary considerably. Wes’s mother deeply valued education and communicated her feelings to her children. However, she was not the person attending the schools. The children’s experience of school both academically and socially and of its impact on their larger environment was vastly different from their mother’s earlier experience and from her vision of what a quality education would mean to them.
Among the factors that influenced the children’s views were the apathy of many teachers, being part of a small number of minorities within a predominantly white student body, and their neighborhood friends’ and former schoolmates’ negative attitude toward their new school. Race and class as well as peer pressure strongly influenced the children’s experience and their interactions with both adults and other children. Although it gradually got through to West that school could get him somewhere, fitting in was a crucial part of his attitude for a long time.