Generation two. (In real life: first-person America).(second-generation homeschoolers )

WHITEHALL, MONTANA--Steve Wagner a soft-spoken landscaper who runs a little commonwealth located 1,915 miles from Washington, D.C. What he calls the Education Station is a community center here in the Rocky Mountains for homeschooling families and others who are interested "in non-governmental solutions to the problems of the culture."

Steve sometimes invites a teacher, minister, or author to hold a seminar for Whitehall-area homeschoolers. Today a newspaper columnist from New England --yours truly--is the speaker. My audience consists largely of teenagers and their parents, and we are deconstructing the copies of the Bozeman Chronicle: playing with headlines, pondering media bias, reading the First Amendment, and debating journalistic ethics.

Media mogul Ted Turner comes up during our two-hour discussion, for his mammoth Montana ranch, the Flying D, is only 50 miles away. Interestingly, Rob Arnaud, the wildlife manager for the liberal, anti-religious Turner, turns out to be a church-going homeschooling father. I learn that there is much work for reform-minded families in Big Sky country: Pushy environmentalists have shut down much of Montana's mining industry, federal land grabs have wounded private property owners, and the state income tax rate is as high as 11 percent.

Sitting in on my media seminar is small business owner and local church elder Tim Martin, 28, and his wife, Amy, 27. They live in Whitehall with their four children. Tim was homeschooled from fifth grade through eleventh grade in Florida, while Amy was taught at home during her elementary school years in Colorado. They are now teaching their own kids at home. So let us note a social landmark: Second-generation homeschoolers are now growing up across America.

Tim and Amy are living refutations of the lame resolution that the National Education Association passes every year at its convention, which reads: "Home schooling programs cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience." (The Martins suggest the statement could be made more accurate by scratching out the word "home" and replacing it with "public.") "Education just works better one-on-one," says Tim. "No school environment--no matter how good, no matter how much money is spent--can compete with homeschooling in this. Why do we think the `right' way to do education is to put 20 or 30 children in a classroom with one teacher? That model is more fit for manufacturing than education."

Amy manages the daily details of teaching and caring for the ...