However, the system you object to actually exists in the real world, in the country of the Netherlands, and several of the worries you have about that system don't seem to appear. In the Netherlands, by that country's constitution for the last century, schools are funded on a per-capita basis, and they can be wholly secular, religiously affiliated (with several different religions well represented by large numbers of schools), or affiliated with specialized approaches to educational philosophy (e.g., Montessori or Waldorf). Grown-up Dutch people seem every bit as able to make up their own minds about what to believe as grown-up American people. In view of this empirical reality, it wouldn't worry me if willing learners obtained funding for education on a basis of all schooling providers being on an equal footing, with parents free to choose for their minor children which educational program was the best fit for the child. See Choice of Schools in Six Nations

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordD...

for history and current data on schools in the Netherlands in other countries.