Uniformity through Uniforms: One parent’s experience with school uniforms
across students should be placed in an environment where they can observe for themselves that arbitrarily well-dressed individuals can be arbitrarily ignorant and stupid. I was certainly able to observe that in my public school education.
Perhaps the uniform proponents believe that clothes actually do matter but want to provide a nurturing environment in which they don’t. We might be concerned with the impoverished student whose self-image and hence his ability to function equally in class is negatively effected by his lack of nice clothes. Wouldn’t uniforms level the playing field for him? To this question I will apply a little “economic theory” along with observational data from a teacher I know. The little bit of economic theory (stated imprecisely) is that decreasing the options available to a consumer can only increase his costs. Where the impoverished student before the uniform policy could choose from a variety clothing sources including hand-me-downs, thrift stores, discount stores, and a variety of styles for achieving respectability at a lower cost, he is now restricted to the available supply of uniforms. These cost more than the clothes he would buy or receive otherwise so he’s forced to buy fewer of them. The result is that his uniforms (of which he may have only one) are worn more frequently and replaced far less frequently if at all than the clothes he would have worn had there not been a uniform policy. The result is, as borne out by teacher observation, that the uniforms of genuinely poor kids are generally far dirtier and in far worse overall condition than uniforms of other children. In schools with a uniform policy there is absolutely no difficulty distinguishing haves with their fresh clean new uniforms from have-nots with their old dirty damaged uniforms. True, some school districts have organized donations or provided public monies to subsidize uniform purchases for poor students. (I don’t remember but this may even be a requirement under the uniform law.) But by the same economic argument, clothing supplements for poor children could be used more effectively to buy clothes in an environment where they are not so restricted with respect to products and sources. Uniforms can only make matters worse for poor children.
What about the stories of kids being murdered for their jackets or sneakers? Won’t uniforms prevent these tragedies? The flaw in this theory is that if students want to wear or carry expensive objects in an environment where children will kill for expensive objects they will always be able to find ways of doing so that are consistent with any uniform law. Rolex watches, expensive jewelry, computers etc. and in fact sneakers and jackets are consistent with the uniform policies in our district. It seems to me that we can assume that students are not anxious to be killed and so the real solution here is to educate students and their parents about the risk of wearing expensive objects in an environment in which people will kill for such objects. There’s little else you can do except when you observe students at risk because they carry such items, send them home on the basis that you cannot guarantee their safety as long as they are carrying those items. You don’t need a uniform policy to do that.
The last point applies as well to the wearing of gang colors. Everyone knows what the gang colors look like. If you see gang colors on some kid you send him home on the basis that his attire is likely to provoke violence and so puts him and others at risk. Again you don’t need a uniform policy for this. (It would be quite a pleasant surprise for everyone I think if a gang member contacted the ACLU and tried to make an argument for his constitutional right to fly his colors. Unfortunately it won’t happen.) Now of course keeping gang colors out of school doesn’t actually address the problem of gangs. I find it hard to imagine a kid deciding not to join a gang on the basis that wearing colors would violate school policy. (“Dear Gang Leader: I want to express my sincere appreciation for the opportunity to join your excellent gang. However I must decline because the uniforms of my school are inconsistent with gang colors.”)
I would think that one of the strongest reasons for not joining a gang is a natural desire not to be bossed around. As I understand it, gangs are strictly hierarchical. The gang leader tells members what to do and how to do it and also what to wear. So it would seem likely that encouraging individuality would strengthen a young person’s resistance to joining a gang. (“Who the blank is this moron to tell me what to do?”) In establishing a uniform policy the school seems to be discouraging individuality. In this sense, other than the types of activities in which the groups engage, there