The call to action brought a barrage of phone calls and faxes that shut down Capitol Hill phone lines for days. The vote was 435-1 against the certification proposal. Not one representative other than Miller wanted to risk the wrath of HSLDA, illustrating an intimidation factor that critics say further allows HSLDA to dominate on the issue of home schooling in state and national forums.

HSLDA is open about its wish to stay in control of the debate on home-schooling issues. The group asks its members, including older children, to learn how to lobby. The group sponsors regular conferences for members that teach tactics and include legislator visits. In 1990, HSLDA created the National Center for Home Education, with its "two-punch" program that trains legislative directors for each state and volunteers for each district to respond to HSLDA alerts about proposed legislation or regulation with faxes, phone calls, e-mails and visits.

And this fall, HSLDA launched Patrick Henry College with the primary goal of training conservative, fundamental leaders who will work for legislators and think tanks to enact change. The college's mission, according to spokesman Rich Jefferson, is to "promote practical application of biblical principles while preparing students for lives of public service, advocacy and leadership." Government is the only subject in which Patrick Henry students can major thus far, and government-related internships are mandatory. Farris promises that grads will work to ensure "the proper, God-given roles in society of church, state and family."

With its own college, lobbying group and research center, the HSLDA is a juggernaut that other home-schoolers will have a hard time matching. "No one has the energy to compete on their scale," notes Laura Derrick, spokeswoman for the National Home Education Network, who helped set up NHEN in part to provide information alternatives to HSLDA. "We home-school because we want to help our kids learn, not pursue an ideological agenda."

Nonetheless, home-schoolers have done much in recent years to expand options for those who are not enamored of HSLDA home-schooling goals. In the past several years, inclusive organizations have blossomed, and national and local networks of inclusive groups have flourished, using the Internet to post a wealth of home-school resources and contacts, including those offered by exclusive groups.

And home-school pioneers are quick to note that home-schoolers have been scrappy and resourceful in their own defense from the start, solving problems that threaten their right to teach at home by working locally in coalitions. "A lot of problems you can simply solve with a letter or phone call or visit to a legislator," says Hegener, the Home Education Magazine founder, who with his wife, Helen, has home-schooled six children since the 1970s. "And legislators tell me that they listen a lot more to local home-schoolers whom they've known over the years than some lawyers coming in from out of town."

Advocates like Derrick hope the increased visibility of inclusive groups will allow the media and public a chance to consider home schooling in all its diversity. That diversity, she notes, isn't yet reflected in much media coverage, which tends to be based on HSLDA statistics, such as its research institute's finding that 85 to 90 percent of home-schoolers made the choice to teach at home "based on religious convictions." The NHERI's survey sample? Some 1,600 HSLDA members.

The press also covered extensively a report released last year by a University of Maryland education professor and funded by HSLDA. It concluded that the vast majority of home-schoolers are white, fairly wealthy and motivated by Christian beliefs. The survey respondents, recruited with assistance from HSLDA, were all home-schoolers who bought testing services and curriculum from the conservative Bob Jones University.

Reporters may not know that HSLDA and other exclusive state organizations rarely refer journalists (and of course, any interested home-schoolers) to inclusive groups. Perhaps that's why most home-school features focus on conservative Christian families. As recently as last month, a reporter for a national newspaper was able to get a contact for an inclusive group only by repeatedly pressing the point and demanding to speak to another person at HSLDA.

This may be the HSLDA's most powerful advantage -- a strong foothold in the press. As long as a stereotype about home schooling persists in the public eye, many frustrated parents will shy away from an education option that has paid off for thousands of children. "People, especially those contemplating home schooling, need to know that home-schoolers come from all different walks of life, home-school for a million different reasons and have a lot of fun and success doing it," says Derrick. "We all suffer when we don't know about all the options."

Order "Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenthood" from the editors of Mothers Who Think.