From The Mouth Of Babes

It is not unusual for polls of children and teenagers to be excellent barometers of public attitudes on contentious, widely discussed public policy issues. That's because children hear what their parents say, and play back those discussions in polls.

The most famous example of that is the quadrennial Weekly Reader poll; a mail-in poll conducted each presidential year among the readers of a publication distributed at many schools across the US. The poll has nailed the winner of every presidential election since 1956! And in its 2004 edition, Bush got 65% of kids' votes, while Kerry got just slightly more than 33% percent, says Weekly Reader editor Mia Toschi.

Ipsos US Public Affairs had a similar experience recently. A Washington DC public middle school (grades five through eight) asked us to conduct an "exit poll" of their students, using volunteer student interviewers and supervisors. The purpose: teach the kids what it means when pundits refer to exit polls in their election night coverage. (The kids were terrific, and conducted a massive poll of almost 250 contacts and over 80 completed interviews -- following instructions to interview every third person contacted -- in just under 30 minutes!)

We decided to include the hot topic in Washington DC on the questionnaire: should the city build a publicly-funded stadium in return for Major League Baseball agreeing to move the moribund Montreal Expos to DC?

We know DC kids have heard their parents discuss the issue, because our polling showed us that it is a topic of universal interest in Washington. In a poll Ipsos Public Affairs conducted of DC registered voters, an incredible 97% said they had heard about the issue and 84% of that number knew a great deal or quite a bit about it.

Did the kids reflect the attitudes of their parents in the middle school exit poll? See for yourself:

Little pitchers have big ears, so they say.