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Exactly. Those huge schools are horrible, and kids ride the bus for hours. Small, local control.

One room schools or schools that combine grades are good. It is unnatural for kids to only associate with those of their exact age anyway. The older ones can help teach the younger ones and that has many benefits.

Our kids’ Catholic school does something like this. The school is PreK-6. The 6th graders are paired up with a Kindergartener (my oldest is in 6th this year); the 5th graders are paired up with a 1st grader; and the 4th graders are paired up with a preschooler. The older ones sit with their pals at Mass each Friday and do other things with them througout the year. It teaches the older kids the responsibility of setting an example for a younger student and it teaches the younger kids that the big kids aren’t so scary, LOL (when I was in 3rd grade, those 8th graders seemed gigantic to me). It is wildly successful—my now third grade son still sees his older pals from his Kindergarten days(who are now at the Catholic junior high up the road) from time to time and it’s fun to watch. There are just around 300 kids in the school, so it’s a tight knit group and everyone knows everyone ;)

It would be SO easy for me to dump my kids in the public school that you see out our back door, but over my dead body. I am grateful for the Catholic education my parents sacrificed for, and it is of top importance for my husband and I to do the same for our four kids. At this school, we KNOW what morals are being taught—and it is not some busybody asking them if they’re gay or straight. My husband was admamant about the kids being given a Catholic education in a Catholic school—even if it means doing without the Ipods and the big-screen TVs.

Anyone who thinks the government can give the same love and attention to my kids in their educational and moral upbringing that I or our chosen school can is REALLY going to love government run healthcare!