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Somewhere between $14 and $60,000 a year. Or more. That's what homeschooling can cost, depending on how you look at it.

But before you start paying for it, you've got to get started in your homeschooling career. That's easy, particularly in Oklahoma, says Marcus Hulings, treasurer and conventions director for the Oklahoma Christian Home Educators Consociation, one of the state's largest homeschooling organizations.

Oklahoma is friendly territory for homeschooling because of a phrase inserted in the original state constitution by a farmer/legislator, Hulings said. Section XIII-4 states that "The Legislature shall provide for the compulsory attendance at some public or other school, unless other means of education are provided...” (emphasis added.) For thousands of Oklahoma families, that other means is homeschooling.

If you are parents with young children who have never been in public school, you just start teaching, Hulings said. "That's it. You don't have to do anything.”

However, if you pull your older child out of a public school to begin homeschooling, you must notify the school in writing that the child is withdrawing. "If there's no notification, the school can claim them as a truant student” and can send an officer to check on the child, he said.

There are no standards, organized testing or other government requirements for homeschooling in Oklahoma, he said, although most homeschool parents test their children to assure they meet achievement levels of their counterparts in public schools.<