Forget the "liberal" and "conservative" labels, if you can, for just a moment. Look at where the policies come from, and who funds and staffs the organizations promoting them.
Most policies come from state and local government. The best mix of ideologies that you will get is the local school board - but they are ill prepared to tackle the local school administrations prof. educators with large staffs of dedicated (you guessed it liberals)If you watch you local access cable you will see local School Bds get bowled over with well prepared reports from the edocracy.
The feds only give about 6-7% of funding to schools and have little impact, which is why I like Bush's limited and focused polices on one particular area - Reading.