In 1978, the Amherst School Department rejected Peter and Susan Perchemlides' proposal for educating their eight-year-old son at home and cited them in court for failing to send the child to school. The author describes this controversy and reviews previous court cases on compulsory schooling. (SJL)

Based on articles about and interviews with citizens and school staffs involved in value conflicts, this report looks at two sources of home-school conflicts--home education and book selection. The first section considers the positive and negative consequences of parent-school conflicts about home schooling; summarizes attitudes of families who…