For the most part, the voters don't vote on educational method unless someone has made a big deal about a particular method, and even then it takes a lot of effort to get people up in arms about method.

Bilingual education is one such fight, though I find it interesting that it really isn't about "bilingual education" at all, which has been used in the US informally since teachers taught in German and English in Pennsylvania schools in the late 1700s. Rather, the fight has been about English/Spanish education. I think there's more to that fight than just teaching children in two languages.

"New math" introduced algebraic concepts into elementary schools, rather than solely the rote memorization of addition and multiplication problems. As I recall, the people who had the most difficulty with that at the time were the adults. Nevertheless, even with all the complaining and the mention in comedy routines, school board candidates did not run on a platform of "anti-associative and commutative laws".

A community expresses its individuality through the preferences it emphasizes in educational matters. Magnet schools are just one example of this expression. The problem arises when political pressure is brought to bear on things that are not a matter of opinion.