Implementing uniform dress within public schools increasingly emerges as a controversial topic in many communities across the United States as parents seek high achieving safe schools for their children. The debate between the student's right to freedom of personal expression through dress versus the value of eliminating distracters to education and safety rages on without any easy answers. The difficulty of the answer lies in the complexity of the question. What do we value? And do we have different values at different times in our lives? Students, parents, and educators frequently voice different answers to this issue of uniform dress in Americ

uniforms help instill students with discipline. They tend to concentrate more on their school work and not each other. Uniforms make students more equal. If everyone is forced to wear the same thing, then the students are more equal on a social level. No one is wearing Ralph Lauren, Abercrombie and Fitch, or DKNY, making students from families of lower incomes who cannot afford expensive clothes feel more equal to those who can. Having the uniforms in public schools lets students concentrate more on their studies rather than what someone else is wearing. Uniforms just help students feel more equal to their peers. Uniforms in school can eliminate rivalry, ridicule, and jealousy. They can also promote a good morale for the school. When students wear certain brands of clothes, they feel like they fit in. Having to wear uniforms eliminates this division, making everyone equal in dress. Also uniforms help the parents out with the expense of having to buy multiple outfits for their kids for school; they would just have to buy a few uniforms for their children to wear to school.

Yet it can be argued that uniforms are not the solution to the problems of public schools. In fact, the main reason that schools do not have uniforms already in place is because of the opposition of parents and students. Most students do not support school uniforms. They like expressing their individuality and freedom to dress the way they want. Many parents and students will argue against school uniforms because uniforms jeopardize their right to freedom of expression. "Critics of school uniforms and strict dress codes contend that children's individuality will be lessened" (Behling 1994). "Others state that uniforms are similar to prison uniforms and make

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Approximate Word count = 1173
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)