Actually, one of the more interesting policy pledges of the new UK government was something like you described, apparently inspired by the Swedish system of "free schools".
The idea was to let parents (or whoever) establish their own schools, and be eligible for public funding based on how many students they enrolled. It was the flagship policy of the Conservative Party's 'Big Society' initiative, something that was criticised a lot both by the right (because they didn't like it) and the left (because they didn't believe the Tories were serious about it). It wasn't mentioned much during the election campaigns since the debate was about austerity and the mood was too grim, and I don't know if anything has happened about it, but I thought it sounded like a good idea.
One problem we're seeing is Sweden at least is that it turns out that offering world class education is simply not a cost effective way to attract lots of students. Offering free laptops, no homework, lots of high tech gadget for students to play with and free trips to Spain turns out to be a far more effective way to attract customers.
At the end of the day most of their potential customers aren't that interested in education, and as such it doesn't make financial sense to spend too much on that aspect of the business.
I bet you're right that a lot of parents aren't all that interested in the quality of education their children get, as such. But ...
If you say your school offers world-class education, parents have no reliable way of telling whether that's true. If it isn't true and they send their child to your school, they still have no reliable way of telling; in particular, they will have a lot of trouble convincing a court that your description of the school was dishonest.
On the other hand, if you say your school has free laptops, no homework, lots of high-tech gadgets, and free trips to Spain, parents can check that pretty easily and get you into legal trouble if it isn't true but you said it was.
If parents care more about things they can actually check, that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't interested in education. They may just be realistic about what they can trust educators to do.
It isn't so much that parents aren't interested in the quality of the eduction, as much as the annoying fact that teenagers have wills of their own. You make it sound like the parents are the target customers for these schools, but based on how the schools target their advertising they realize that their target customers are very much the kids.
Now admittedly I don't have teenage kids, but from what I hear I imagine it is non-trivial to tell them that they can't go to the school they have their heart set on and instead must go to a school they don't want to go to at all. And even if the parent does win that particular battle of wills, I image that the kids motivation will have taken quite a beating. I suppose at the end of the day most parents reason that it's better to send their kids to a bad school they are enthusiastic about rather than a good school they don't want to go to.
I agree it sounds like a fun education, I'm not quite convinced about the 'good' bit. I guess it depends on what you want out of high school. Faffing about in a professionally equipped TV and recording studio and getting drunk in Spain for a week are certainly both educational in some sense, but it's hardly what I'd call well rounded.
Then again I suppose anything that makes kids excited about high school is probably a good thing, even if it means sacrificing the academic side of things. A 'bad' education that you enjoy is probably more rewarding than a 'good' education you hate.
I'd say 1 week a year of partying doesn't immediately ruin your roundedness. But yes, some faffing may make kids more excited about making TV shows than they are about latin grammar.
The idea was to let parents (or whoever) establish their own schools, and be eligible for public funding based on how many students they enrolled. It was the flagship policy of the Conservative Party's 'Big Society' initiative, something that was criticised a lot both by the right (because they didn't like it) and the left (because they didn't believe the Tories were serious about it). It wasn't mentioned much during the election campaigns since the debate was about austerity and the mood was too grim, and I don't know if anything has happened about it, but I thought it sounded like a good idea.