I had a similar 12 year experience with Sisters of the Holy Ghost for elementary school and Dominican sisters and priests in high school. The academics were outstanding, but it was equally about building character and people skills such as learning obedience to rules, honesty and integrity, self discipline, delayed gratification, respect for others, empathy, etc. Of course all of this was reinforced at home. All in all it’s a type of education we don’t see a lot of anymore.
I also went to Catholic Schools up through the 9th grade. I went to public high school at my choice because the Catholic high schools were all boys. Just because of some bad apples, you can’t throw Catholic education to the wolves. Many, many kids got one heck of an education in Catholic schools. I don’t believe that the problems in the schools are any worse that the public schools. It’s just that the media loves to pick on any thing that will sell more papers.