Dressed (alike) for success

The case for school uniforms

Nu Magazine - April 16, 2009

Virginia Draa, an assistant professor at Youngstown State University, reviewed attendance, graduation, and proficiency pass rates at 64 public high schools in Ohio. After her study was completed, the results were not expected.

Draa’s study concluded that schools with a uniform policy improved attendance, graduation, and suspension rates.

When students look clean and orderly, they feel good about themselves. They appear as if they care about their work and if they look like this, then eventually, perhaps, they will act this way.

With uniforms, there will be more time available for studying because students will spend much less time shopping.

They will also be more focused on schoolwork, as opposed to thinking about what they will wear the next day.

Students will arrive earlier to school since they will not be trying on many different outfits before they pick the right one. Since there will only be one outfit to choose from, it takes pressure off students to find something “cute” to wear every day — one less thing to be stressed out about.

Uniforms are also helpful financially. They allow parents to save money because their children need to wear the same outfit to school during the week, every day.

In addition, students will not feel poor in comparison to fellow pupils; richer children would not be allowed to wear brand-name clothing.

Wearing uniforms allows students to feel no pressure to dress a certain way and to socially fit with pupils based solely on clothing.   Students should feel completely comfortable in school and learn that their studies are more important than their appearance.

Uniforms remind students that they are all equal, therefore removing any economic barriers among them. As former President Bill Clinton said in his 1996 State of the Union speech, “If it means that teenagers will stop killing each other over designer jackets, then our public schools should be able to require their students to wear school uniforms.”

When students wear uniforms in school, intruders are more recognizable.

Critics of uniforms say students may lose their individuality. But uniforms may also urge students to express their individuality in other, less superficial ways — not through looks, but through their personality, attitude, and academics.

To wear something that many others have gives one a sense of belonging. Note the way many students are excited to join a youth group, a sports team, or a school club so that they can wear the uniform.  They are immediately identified as belonging to that group and then they feel they are labeled “cool.”

Wearing uniforms can build school spirit; they make the student body feel more united. Students feel loyal and proud of their school, for they are recognized wherever they go in their uniforms and are associated with their school. Students feel fulfilled to know that they represent their whole student body by simply wearing their uniforms.

Aliza Shapiro, 16, attends Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School.

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