Increasing numbers of children are meeting state compulsory education requirements at home rather than at school. Although home instruction was once the mainstay of frontier American education, some educators now regard the practice as suspect. This paper hopes to reconcile opposing views by examining home schooling, including numbers of children, curricula, and some testing data. The report briefly reviews official responses to home instruction, with special attention to constitutional limits on state regulation, and suggests how public educators and home schoolers can cooperate. Home schoolers differ philosophically, but firmly agree that parents should be deeply involved in their children's education and development. The number of home schooled children has grown from about 15,000 in the early 1970s to between 120,000 and 260,000 children today. The movement may have peaked due to the enormous parental time commitment involved and the widening availability of Christian schools. The curricular packages examined show that home schools follow no standard pattern. Scattered testing data suggest that home schooling successes are more numerous than failures regarding both academic and social development. After reviewing state policies and court actions, the paper argues for increased cooperation between public officials and home schoolers to help identify rare cases of child abuse or neglect and enrich the database for child development and learning. Included are a list of interviewees, notes, 13 references, a list of cases, and an appendix describing home schooling in the Appalachia Educational Laboratory's region. (MLH)