Hundreds of public schoolchildren, some as young as 11, are taking time out of regular classes to canvass neighborhoods in Milwaukee, Madison and Racine in a get-out-the-vote effort organized by Wisconsin Citizen Action Fund - a group whose umbrella organization has endorsed George W. Bush for president.

The coalition says the effort is non-partisan, but because the group is targeting overwhelmingly Republican areas, Democratic operatives are crying foul amid the highly charged political atmosphere in the state.

"They are exploiting schoolchildren on the taxpayers' dime to conduct what is clearly a Republican, partisan get-out-the-vote effort," said Chris Lato, communications director for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. "To spend this time on a clearly partisan effort when these kids should be in school learning is shocking. It's a disgraceful use of taxpayer money..."

Students are going door to door and using phone banks to call homes urging citizens to register to vote and to remind them where the polling places are. On election day, hundreds of students plan to go out into the community to induce people to go to the polls.

Ringing doorbells in Ward 231 in Milwaukee's far south side on Tuesday morning, Trenise Johnson, 11, and a dozen of her classmates at Wisconsin Conservatory of Lifelong Learning, missed a variety of classes, including science, math and reading.

The group does not canvass in high Democratic turnout neighborhoods because that is not part of its mission, said Marx.

Georgia Duerst-Lahti, chairman of the political science department at Beloit College, said she finds merit in the program, but she wishes the people at Wisconsin Citizen Action would not "pretend they are not partisan."

"It's a extremely conservative kind of group, and everyone knows it," she said.

"There is absolutely a partisan aim here," she said.