What’s the Scholastic Student Vote?
During presidential election years, Scholastic asks kids to choose their candidate in a mock-election and lets them vote though either an online poll or via print ballots from Scholastic News. Since the vote started in 1940, the results of the kids' election has mirrored the national outcome all but two times. (Not bad!)
For this edition of Throwback Thursday, I thought it would be interesting to find the first Student Vote poll. Scholastic classroom magazines have changed a LOT since the 1940s, so our librarian Deimosa thought we should start with the card catalogue. We assumed it would be in Scholastic News (or in whatever version existed of it back then), and it would have to take place before November, yet still in the fall. (Remember, no Internet meant only mail-in paper ballots!)
We eventually found a copy of the poll in a bound edition of Scholastic magazine from mid/late October 1940. Besides picking who they thought should be and who would be elected president, kids were also asked about the United States’ involvement in World War II, and if driver's education should be taught in schools. What a variety of questions! Check them out along with the kids’ answers below.
Gina Asprocolas
