In Australia the only elections regarding school are for the parent representatives on school council, which is local to an individual school, and sets some amount of strategic direction, but overall, doesn't do a lot. Curriculum & testing decisions are made by politicians and bureaucrats at the state or federal level. We also don't elect judges, DAs, etc. We just elect politicians; they are ultimately responsible for making sure their respective public servants are doing the will of the people. You could argue the US system is more democratic, and yet most such systems in the US seem to be broken (from an outside perspective), while here they are not (there are certainly problems mind you).

Any perspective how these things work in countries that have a well-regarded, high performing education system, like Finland (apart from having well-trained, highly regarded, and highly trained teachers with a large degree of autonomy)?