Naptime with Kevin and Courtney: Public vs. Private School

Kevin and I sit down during naptime to talk through a decision we're in the middle of right now: where to send our kids for preschool and early elementary. Private tuition in our area can rival a mortgage payment. Public school comes with question marks. We don't have this figured out. We're working through it in real time, including the parts that are emotional and messy.One thing we keep coming back to is the future. We were pretty set on a Spanish immersion school 30 minutes away. Then it hit me that AI translation is getting so good that I honestly don't know how valuable being bilingual will be in 10 years. I still think learning a language grows your brain. But is it worth $25,000 a year per kid plus an hour a day in the car? That money and time could go toward travel, tutoring, experiences. It adds up fast and it quietly reduces your flexibility.We also get into what "bad schools" actually means in a well-off area, how class size and funding shape a classroom, and why we care about our kids being around all kinds of people, not just kids whose parents can afford tuition.Then we zoom out. School was designed for the industrial age. The world our kids will work in is changing fast. Maybe grit, leadership, and social skills matter more than test scores. Maybe a school five minutes away with a tight village around it is a feature, not a compromise.If you're weighing public vs. private, charters, or homeschooling, this episode won't give you our answer to copy. It'll help you figure out what you actually value.What's the biggest factor driving your school choice right now? I want to know.