Stop and think for a minute.
How much time every morning do you spend trying to decide what to wear? How much money do you and your parents spend on brand name clothes each year? How often do you feel pressured to wear the right clothes just so you can "fit in"?
Chances are, what you wear to school plays a major role in your life. Clothes take up lots of time, tons of money, and they have a big effect on what your classmates think of you.
"Ok," you say, "so clothes can be a pain. But there's no way to avoid them. It's just the way things are."
Or is it? Do you realize that solving problems such as these is what politics is all about?
In his 1996 State of
the Union Address,
President Clinton called the
nation's attention to a potential solution to this and many
other problems: school uniforms for public schools. "Yuck!", you
say. "I don't want to wear a boring uniform!"
But consider it for a minute. You wouldn't have to
waste valuable minutes zoned in front of your closet door
every morning. You wouldn't need to spend as much on
clothes. And, most importantly, everyone would be dressed
alike, so no one would feel left out because he or she didn't
own as many outfits.
Choosing Sides
PRO-UNIFORMS
Many politicians and school administrators support switching to strict uniforms as a way to get kids to focus on school work rather than fashion. Some schools, such as the ones in the Long Beach, California district, report that after only one year, its mandatory uniform policy led to decreased violence in the schools and even higher test scores. Of course, these two things could just be a coincidence, but the theory behind school uniforms is to provide the students with a sense of unity and, as a result, to reduce the amount of attention paid to the way students dress.
ANTI-UNIFORMS
Those people opposed to uniforms say that students lose some of their individuality, and some even say that uniforms are unconstitutional because they limit free speech and expression. Also, uniforms cost money to buy, and in some of the areas that might benefit most if uniforms really DO decrease crime and increase test scores, there just is not enough extra money to fund such a project.
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