Who needs high-paid pollsters when there are American schoolchildren to predict the results of the presidential election?

A poll released yesterday of the student readers of Weekly Reader – who have a remarkable 48-year track record of correctly forecasting the outcome of the election – showed President Bush with a decisive victory.

The president won the admittedly unscientific survey with 65% of the popular vote. Senator Kerry earned a mere 33%.

Even in New York, not known for its liberal leanings, the incumbent won, with 51.5%, compared to Mr. Kerry’s 47.3%.

“Given that this is an unscientific poll, I think it’s fascinating that they’ve been right every other time,” said the senior vice president of editorial for Weekly Reader, Ira Wolfman.

But he wouldn’t vouch for the outcome of the election based on the results. “This is a unique election,” he said. “We’ll just have to see.”

Students have selected the winning candidate going all the way back to 1956, when President Eisenhower was facing off against Adlai Stevenson. That was the first time the weekly magazine conducted its pre-election poll.

Despite the poll’s tradition of success in predicting the outcome of the election, Mr. Wolfman said Weekly Reader sees it as a fun way for children to learn about the democratic process, not as an electoral crystal ball.

“It’s a national participation poll to encourage kids to understand the privilege, the duty, and the excitement of participating in the American political system,” he said, adding, “We’re trying to stimulate them to read, to write, and to research.”

Weekly Reader, which publishes 16 magazines for different age groups, sent two reporters out on the campaign trail, to the Democratic and Republican conventions, and to the debates. They covered the political process with age-appropriate news stories.

The magazines also ran biographies of the candidates, with everything from their positions on healthcare, education, and the war in Iraq to their pets, childhoods, favorite colors, and best sports.

After months of reading about the candidates in Weekly Reader and hearing about the campaign from other sources,327,707 children weighed in on the poll. That was a 20% jump in participation from the 2000 election.

Mr. Wolfman attributed the turnout to the higher-than-normal levels of excitement and interest in this year’s election.

He said the younger children leaned more decisively toward Mr. Bush, something he said was probably a result of their parents’ political leanings.

He said more high-school students voted for Mr. Kerry. The Massachusetts senator won the 10th-grade vote.

In New York, 12,714 students voted. The only states with higher participation were Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. In Texas, the president won by a 76% to 23% margin.

Zogby International, which has been conducting public opinion polls since 1984, tracked the votes.