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By Karen Schwartz

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an Alterman is a fan of
school uniforms. Grow-
ing up, the Franklin resident
said they minimized
distraction and leveled
the playing field at Detroit
Country Day, the local private
school she attended. To Alterman, the
uniform set the stage for a serious learning
environment. "It was just totally different,"
she said. "How you dress really does influ-
ence how you behave
Wearing school uniforms through ninth
grade and having a strict dress code in
high school limited social pressures and
encouraged students to prioritize the
inside over the outside, she recalled.
"I think it allows kids to shine for who
they are and not what they have," she said.
From Nutley, N.J., to Chandler, Ariz.,
and countless other neighborhoods in
between, the debate over school uniforms
and dress codes becomes topic du jour
as classes resume for the fall semester.
While some of the country's grittier inner-
city school districts, like Detroit Public
Schools, have mandated a dress code for
years, the debate mushroomed nationally
15 years ago.
Back in 1996, President Clinton thrust
the topic in the national spotlight follow-
ing his State of the Union address. During
that speech the president stated, "If it
means that teenagers will stop killing one
another over designer jackets, then our
public schools should be able to require
their students to wear uniforms."
Soon after that, Clinton visited Long
Beach, Calif, where the first district-wide
mandatory school-uniform policy in the
country was enjoying seemingly remark-
able success. In a speech to attendees at a
local school, he announced an order he re-
cently signed that instructed the secretary
of education to send to all school districts
across the nation a newly drafted Manual
on School Uniforms, which was modeled
on districts like Long Beach.
Since then, the myth that uniforms
act as a quantifiable emulsifier for social
unrest has been debunked.
In the case of Long Beach, the initial
reports concerning drops in crime and
discipline were astonishing. Assault
dropped by 67 percent, vandalism by 82
percent and robbery by 35 percent the first
year the policy was in place. A Univer-
sity of Notre Dame study conducted to
investigate the seeming miracle, where
proponents specifically cited the change
in dress code as the primary catalyst for
the 73 percent overall reduction in crime,
revealed that several other reforms were
enacted simultaneously, or just prior to the

dress code mandate. Uniforms were just
the most visible component.
However, the debate continues, and even
though Alterman didn't pick a school for
her two daughters based on its uniform
policy — the girls' school, Farmington
Hills-based Hillel Day School of Metro-
politan Detroit has a dress code but no set
uniform — she said she hopes schools in
the broader community one day embrace
the practice of adopting uniforms.
"It's on the list of issues that come up
every year and Hillel revisits from time to
time," said Steve Friedman, head of school
at the Hebrew day school. "Consistency of
enforcement is key," he said, "sometimes a
greater issue than the policy itself"
The school instituted a stricter dress
code seven years ago that ruled out blue
jeans, sweatpants, athletic wear and baggy
clothes, including items with writing on
them. The new rules also put the kibosh on
tank- and halter-tops, which seems like a
natural exclusion, anyway, at a Jewish day
school.
Friedman believes the modifications
led to positive changes in school atmo-
sphere. And, because there was no uniform
imposed, it continued to let students
pick their clothes within "a framework:'
expecting they will "rise to the occasion;' he
explained. 'We're prepared to keep it this
way because we feel it strikes a balance."
Matt Buesing was a member on his
hometown's school board in New Jersey
when it implemented a school-uniform
policy in fall 2003. Eight years later, the
policy is still in place and, he says, suc-
cessful. "It gets reviewed every year and
tweaked," he added.
Now a school marketing coordina-
tor affiliated with French Toast School
Uniforms, he said 22 percent of all public
schoolchildren wear some form of uniform
dress to school every day, whether it's full
uniform or policies that favor solid polo
shirts and khaki pants but prohibit denim,
jeans or hooded sweatshirts. "It's just a
more professional look," he explained.
Over the last two years, the growth in
the number of school districts discussing
or implementing a school-uniform policy
has gone up 7 percent, he said, citing an in-
crease of approximately 200,000 students
each year.
He attributed some of the growth to
tough economic times, arguing that dis-
tricts are seeking to lessen the burden on
parents by cutting wardrobe costs, and also
the expected enhancement of the learning
environment by changing its tone.
Buesing acknowledged that dress codes
and uniforms are not silver bullets able to
fix all social ills at school, but he argued it

does foster an environment where teachers
and administrators can focus on issues
other than clothing discipline.
When he and fellow Middle Township,
N.J., school-board members first passed
the new uniform policy in 2003, the waves
it caused made ripples across the Hudson
when-the New York Times called seeking
comment.
"We get to the first day of school, and it's
a media circus — the New York Times is at
the front door, we have the local televi-
sion stations there — and nothing hap-
pened; kids came, and nothing happened,"
Buesing said. "Everyone got so worked up
thinking we were going to have burning
polo shirts in the front yardf
If Clinton's 1996 remarks brought the is-
sues of dress code and conduct to the fore,
the Columbine High School tragedy three
years later served to light the issue on fire.
Ever since that fateful moment, "school
leaders have been grasping at any policy
that could contribute to a more civil, safe
and tolerant school environment," ob-
served Jay Goldman, editor of the monthly
magazine School Administrator.
So enthusiastic are American families
about uniforms that this year they will
spend $1.5 billion on them — triple what
they spent just two years ago.
By themselves, said Goldman, "school
uniforms are not the answer to higher
achievement or to closing the gap between
minority and majority students."
Wick Elementary school in Romu-
lus, Mich., is set to take up a mandatory
school-uniform policy this fall. A Romu-
lus Community Schools representative
explained that uniforms at Wick would be
a pilot study to help determine whether the
policy would be extended to other schools.
Buesing said Detroit has been one of the
top five school uniform markets in Amer-
ica, in terms of most children in uniform
since the school-uniform movement began.
Fifteen percent of students in Michigan
wear school uniforms, he added, with
most of that 15 percent coming from
Detroit proper.
Still, for many, the jury remains out on
the impact uniforms themselves have on
students' learning.
Ryan Yeung, who studies education poli-
cy, researched the uniform issue as a Ph.D.
student at Syracuse University, looking at
kids from similar backgrounds in schools
with or without school-uniform policies.
His research suggested that children in
schools with school uniforms do not seem
to do better than kids in schools without
school uniforms in terms of test scores.
"It was surprising; I would have thought
that the kids with the school uniforms

would have done better," he said. "There's a
lot of sociological theory that suggests that
uniforms have a transformative effect on
individuals because once you start wearing
a uniform, you start adopting the norms of
that social institution."
A uniform-wearer at a Brooklyn
intermediate school, IS 383, during the
mid-1990s, Yeung said it was the educa-
tion the students went on to get and the
backgrounds they came from, as opposed
to what they wore, that enhanced their
education. "My experience is that the
places where school uniforms work, they're
really kind of tangential to the process:' he
said.
Ask a 16-year-old about uniforms at a
school that doesn't require them, and you
might encounter a hard sell.
"I think that the addition of a uniform
would take away the flavor from everyday
life at school:" said Noah Newman, who
attends Bloomfield Hills Andover High.
"It makes everyone the same; there's no
diversity. For some people, the way they
dress is how they express themselves, and
without that, I think it takes part of high
school away."
Tzvi Klugerman , incoming head of
school at Akiva Hebrew Day School in
Southfield, said he believes in a dress
code but not a uniform as ideal. Students
at Akiva wear uniforms during first-fifth
grade and follow a dress code from sixth
grade on, which matches what he says are
the need students have by sixth grade to
develop "their own sense of style."
"I feel that's the best time to start to train
them and educate them on how to balance
the need for personal style with the obliga-
tions and limits imposed by Halachah
[Torah law]," he said. Klugerman added
that schools he has worked in have always
vetoed uniforms in favor of dress codes.
On a community-wide level, he pointed
to the fact that some groups in the Jewish
community wear uniforms ad infinitum.
"In Chasidic communities, its always black
coat, black hat;' he said. "So their sense of
uniform and community norm extends
way past the school years into adulthood
and even into old age:'
For a Modern Orthodox school, he
thinks a dress code is the way to go to have
the students balance it all out.
In the end, Klugerman and his Hillel
Day School counterpart, Steve Friedman,
expressed similar views about the need
for consistency and enforcement of school
rules, whether that's jackets and ties, some
form of dress code or neither.
"If you're coming to the school, you're
buying into it;' Klugennan said.

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20 September 2011 I

RED THREAD

www.redthreadmagazine.com

