Ravenswood parents say school district leaders ignore them.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

SAN JOSE, Calif. _ Any day, a federal judge is to decide whether the state should take over the Ravenswood City School District to finally fix long-standing education problems there. In opposing a takeover, the district's leaders maintain that the parents of East Palo Alto and eastern Menlo Park are on their side.

But dozens of parents interviewed by the San Jose Mercury News say they desperately want the state to replace Superintendent Charlie Mae Knight and the school board and administration, and some have written to the court or met with a court official to say that.

The parents say Ravenswood has made them feel powerless as advocates for their children. They tell of teachers, administrators and board members ignoring their concerns. And they say the leadership has stayed in power not because the community is happy, but because many are kept uninformed or are afraid to stand up to the district _ problems compounded by language barriers amid the community's large Latino population.

"We want to scream," says Marcelino Lopez, president of the district's state-mandated advisory committee of parents of English learners. "We want everybody to hear that our kids need a good education and they're not getting it."

Ravenswood has been…