My children graduated 9 and 4 yrs ago and I saw little difference in the teaching from the Public School (admittedly one of the best) and the Lutheran school in terms of content.
While Mr. Gradgrind and our teachers might have become upset with poor spelling its acceptance does not mean the collapse of Western Civilization. Now such concerns are not as great given the spellchecker and such.
LOL!!!!
In our house Mommy is the spellchecker :) She's 8, and though I let her play around using Word, Daddy disabled the spellchecker.