Thank you, Kevin Dowd
Yesterday MoDo incorporated into her column her brother Kevin’s e-mail. Kevin said, among other things,

My wife and I picked our sons' schools based on three criteria: 1) moral values 2) discipline 3) religious maintenance - in that order. We have spent an obscene amount of money doing this and never regretted a penny. Last week on the news, I heard that the Montgomery County school board voted to include a class with a 10th-grade girl demonstrating how to put a condom on a cucumber and a study of the homosexual lifestyle. The vote was 6-0. I feel better about the money all the time.

My feelings exactly. Many people like myself believe that sex education is a parenting issue, and as such, should be left to the parents, but that is only one of the many reasons that have driven people like me and my husband to abandon the local public schools and enroll our child(ren) in private schools.

Moral values and discipline are closely related. It comes as no surprise that religious schools do well in bad neighborhoods, since in those schools the person’s behavior is seen in the context of the moral person.

Here in Princeton we are blessed with a variety of private schools, even when the local schools are highly rated, and the choices range from Montessori to the Latin Academy. None of them come cheap. The average tuition for grade school runs to approx. $12,000-$15,000/yr.

To those parents who are contemplating sending their children to private school and the only thing keeping them is the financial aspect, my experience is, this is the best money you’ll ever spend. Do without a new car, don’t replace the furniture, buy your clothes at Target. Do your research and pick a good private school. You won’t regret it.

And I wish the NYT would replace Maureen with Kevin.