From the Publisher

By Robert L. Miller

As you know, millions of Americans will go to the polls on Nov. 8 to elect a new President. What you may not know is that five days earlier, on Nov. 3, millions of American students and their parents will vote for a new President in a mock election sponsored principally by Time Inc. United by a live nationwide satellite broadcast, they will be taking part in the largest voter- education project ever.

The National Student/Parent Mock Election, started eight years ago by a New York City educator named Gloria Kirshner, is designed to encourage grammar and high school students to discuss the issues and get into the habit of voting. "I wanted to help young people feel they can control their own destinies, as well as the destiny of their nation," Kirshner says. "It's the same sense of powerlessness that keeps some people from voting that also leads many students to drop out of school." Two million participated in the program in 1984, and this year many more are expected to take part.

TIME has helped out by mailing guidebooks on the issues to the country's 15,000 school districts. Over the coming days, students will take part in discussions in their classrooms -- and, we hope, at home with their parents &-- about the national issues outlined in TIME's booklet. Then on Nov. 3, the students and parents will vote for members of Congress and Governors, as well as for President; they will also answer a questionnaire on topics ranging from drug laws to arms control developed for TIME by the polling firm Yankelovich Clancy Shulman. The results from each school will be telephoned to a state coordinator, who in turn will relay the totals to the Time & Life Building in New York City.

There the votes will be tallied live on C-SPAN in a broadcast anchored by Mary Alice Williams of CNN and several New York City high schoolers. "This gives students a chance to feel like they are part of something bigger," says Jeremi Suri, 16. Erin Murphy, 17, thinks the mock election will be taken seriously by politicians. After all, she says, "many of us will be voting for real in the next presidential election in 1992."