The vast majority of Americans will ignore the school board elections that are on the ballot Tuesday. Yet these races have the power to determine how schools spend billion-dollar budgets, what children read in the classroom, and whether teachers unions will tighten their grip on America’s public education system. 

Thousands of school board seats from the nation’s more than 13,000 public school districts are up for grabs this year. These local school leaders, most of whom are unpaid volunteers whose names voters won’t recognize, are charged with determining how the next generation of Americans will be educated. Only 5 to 10 percent of voters, however, mark their ballots for school board candidates, who tend to appear at the bottom or on the back of their ballots, according to the National School Boards Association.