artchill,
You make an interesting point. With resources that are not infinite, we can’t support every kollel, nor every kiruv effort. For example, which is more important: Keeping adult men learning for years in kollel, or keeping schools open? Would the answer be different if we knew that more frum families will be sending their kids to public schools as a direct result of allocating funds to kollel or kiruv organizations?
I don’t have an answer but someone should at least be asking the questions.
Another idea: While in the US there is essentially no governmental funding for religious education, there is governmental funding for other communal institutions such as social service organizations. Agudath Israel itself even gets some government funding! We could push for substantial increases in social welfare spending that would be directed towards our communal social service organizations and redirect our resources towards education. We could do the same with emergency medical services, getting the government to better fund its fire and rescue services so that Hatzalah didn’t need as much Jewish funding — or even give direct grants to Hatzalah. There are probably other examples.