Do School Uniforms Fit?

School Administrator, Feb, 2000 by Kerry A. White

School districts increasingly test one-style-fits-all dress policies to promote positive attitudes

School leaders in the Ridley School District in suburban Philadelphia weighed carefully their decision to require school uniforms last fall.

Parents were surveyed and community concerns were aired before the nine-member school board's unanimous decision in July to adopt a mandatory uniform policy for students in grades kindergarten through five.

Under the new policy, the district's elementary school students are leaving their baggy pants and crop tops in the closet on school mornings to don regulation khaki pants, shorts or skirts "of the appropriate size" and hunter green or white shirts, which must be worn tucked in.

Ridley officials say the new policy is intended to foster a team learning environment and help teachers and administrators maintain order.

"We wanted our school district to be ahead of the curve," says John R. Cleghorn, director of support services in the 5,700-student district. "We think it will reduce disciplinary problems, improve school spirit and classroom behavior and make it easier for school staff to identify who belongs on campus."

Ridley schools are among the first in Pennsylvania to take advantage of a 1998 state law that allows school districts to set their own dress codes. And as policymakers and school officials race to find solutions to hard-to-solve problems ranging from low student achievement to school violence, the district is part of a growing movement nationally to adopt the one-style-fits-all dress policy.

Wider Acceptance

The idea is not a new one. School uniforms have been mandatory in private and parochial schools for centuries, but they've only emerged as a popular policy option for public schools in the last decade or so--this despite the fact that school uniforms never have been singled out as a main factor in private and parochial schools' success.

"They're a relatively recent phenomenon," says Ronald D. Stephens, executive director of the National School Safety Center at Pepperdine University in Westlake Village, Calif. "In the wake of school shootings, communities and schools are much more willing to embrace uniforms as well as a number of other strategies to enhance student safety."

While there are no national data quantifying the number of schools nationwide that have adopted school uniform policies, scattered surveys give an indication of their growing numbers.

In a 10-state survey by the National Association of Elementary School Principals and the clothing company Lands' End two years ago, 11 percent of elementary and middle school principals said their schools currently mandated uniforms, and 15 percent said their schools were considering adopting them. By contrast, only a few public schools were experimenting with uniforms a decade earlier.

Their overall acceptance is growing too. In a national survey of 1,000 parents last May by Lands' End, which has come out with its own line of school uniforms, 18 percent of respondents said their children would be in uniforms this school year, and 56 percent said they would support school uniforms if their schools adopted them.

All uniform policies, of course, are not the same. Some are very loose, requiring that students abide by more of a dress code--navy or khaki pants and white shirts of their choosing, for example. Others require students to purchase the same selection of clothes from a chosen manufacturer. While most schools allow students to opt out of uniforms for religious or personal reasons, some do not.

One District's Lead

Public school uniform policies date back to the 1980s, when selected schools in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Miami-Dade County, Bridgeport, Conn., and Detroit began requiring them.

In 1994, the Long Beach, Calif., Unified School District was the first in the nation to require uniforms in all elementary and middle schools. Like other urban school uniform policies, Long Beach's was intended to curb gang problems, and school officials not only credit it with having accomplished that goal, but also say uniforms have brought about a substantial drop in school crime, a drop in school suspensions and disciplinary problems and improved student attendance rates and academics.

Today, students in all 57 of Long Beach's elementary schools, all 15 of its middle schools and one high school are wearing uniforms.

"We've seen significant improvements in student behavior and student achievement," says Dick Van Der Laan, spokesman for the 93,000-student district. He says the district's test scores are up across the board and absenteeism and suspensions are the lowest they've been for more than a decade. "School uniforms have helped us set and achieve high standards and helped to create a setting that says you're here to learn."

After hearing about Long Beach's much-touted success, President Clinton went on to endorse the idea in a March 1996 speech, saying: "If it means that the school rooms will be more orderly and more disciplined and that our young people will learn to evaluate themselves by what they are on the inside, instead of what they're wearing on the outside, then our public schools should be able to require their students to wear school uniforms."