PEARL --- Mississippi does almost nothing to regulate families who teach their children at home, and that's just fine with many homeschoolers who look skeptically at government intervention of any kind.
"We're anti-regulation, personally," says bail bondsman David Sanch, whose wife, Wanda, teaches their two sons at home in this Jackson suburb.
The Sanches removed their children from public schools four years ago after the boys were taunted over their Pentecostal beliefs. Joel, now 15, and Jonathan, now 12, aren't allowed to wear baggy pants or watch MTV like many of their contemporaries.
"They're a little bit different because we raise them differently," David Sanch says.
Mississippi requires homeschool parents to file certificates with their local school attendance officer saying they're teaching their children themselves. They must provide the children's names and phone numbers and give a basic description of the instruction - a description that can be as brief as, "We're teaching the sixth grade."
That's it for state regulation.
There are no requirements for families to tell state or local authorities what curriculum they're using or what kind of schedules they're following. There are no requirements for periodic testing to see how homeschooled children compare to their more traditionally taught peers. There are no educational requirements for parents who teach their children.
There's also little political will to establish any kind of standards.
Mississippi House Education Committee Chairman Joe Warren says he learned this year that homeschoolers won't sit quietly while the state tries to impose new regulations.
Warren, D-Mount Olive, filed a bill during the regular session that would've required parents who homeschool their children to let public school attendance officers know what kind of curriculum they're using
"I had no evil intent," says Warren.
Carol McPhearson of Vicksburg, a homeschool mom, used her opposition to the bill as a living civics lesson for her sons, Daniel and Chad.
Daniel, then 17, was a page at the Capitol when the bill was still alive, and McPhearson took Chad, then 14, to Jackson to lobby against it. Carol, who has a teaching degree from Mississippi State University and has been instructing her sons at home for almost seven years, said more regulation won't help anyone become a better educator, whether they're homeschooling or teaching in public, private or parochial settings.
"God gave my sons to me. I think he has provided more for teaching them, as their mother, than the teaching degree did," says McPhearson, who splits teaching duties with her husband, Danny, an engineer.
Warren says he filed the bill at the request of school attendance officers, who have fielded complaints about children riding their bikes or hanging out in shopping centers during the school day. They said they don't know if the children are homeschooled or just playing hooky, and they thought more documentation would help them catch those who were just goofing off.
The bill passed Warren's committee with little fanfare. Then word got out among homeschoolers, and lawmakers were flooded with e-mail messages and phone calls of protest.
Warren killed the bill. He had it sent back to his committee, so the full House wouldn't have to vote on it.
After that firestorm, Warren says he's leery of trotting out any new regulation proposals.
"Why should you just beat your head against a brick wall when you know you have no chance of success?" he says.
Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Alice Harden, D-Jackson, says she has heard little from homeschoolers, but she might want to explore some regulations. She worries some parents might say they're homeschooling but send their children to work instead.
Sen. Alan Nunnelee, R-Tupelo, is regarded as one of the legislative experts on homeschooling, and is an ally of the movement. He says he has filed bills the last several years to allow homeschooled kids to participate in public school band and athletics. Those bills have died.
One of Nunnelee's constituents, Shelley Crampton, teaches her four school-aged children at home. She and her husband, Steve, also have an infant and a toddler.
Shelley Crampton wants their 14-year-old son, Joseph, to play the trumpet at Tupelo High this year. She says Joseph excelled in the Tupelo Middle School band in seventh and eighth grades; he was homeschooled for the rest of his subjects.
Joseph Crampton has been barred from the high school band because the Mississippi High School Activities Association says only full-time public school students can participate in band and athletics.
"I pay the same taxes that everybody else does, or more," Shelley Crampton says. "And I can't use the same services that are offered to other people. I'm discriminated against."
There is, however, no uniformity among homeschoolers about wanting their kids to participate in public school activities.
"We don't like mixing," Carol McPhearson says. "It potentially opens the door for things to be demanded of us."