We have a kind of weird situation here (at least in Ontario) wherein the Catholic schools are also funded by the tax base (you select which of the public or catholic school boards you would like your tax money to go towards at the municipal elections), and the catholic schools are pretty free to proselytize, have school prayers, force attendace to school masses, etc. They make up almost half of the schools in any city. For some reason, I went through this system, and it had an (unsurprisingly) placating effect on the religious fervour of its students. Everyone would say they believed in god, but it wasn't a big deal. It seemed more confusing than offensive to them if you didn't (and actually bothered to admit that).

I knew a jewish kid who went through this system too, and he always got exemptions from the masses and religion classes. I just had to read during them and not recite the prayer in the morning.