The evidence supporting mandatory uniforms in public schools
far outweighs
the arguments against them. For instance, Long Beach Unified
School District was the first district in the United States
to require students to wear uniforms to school. They conducted
a survey on the effect of uniforms, and the results of the
survey show that uniforms work. After requiring uniforms,
there has been a 51% drop in physical fights, and a 32%f drop
in suspensions. There was also a 50% drop in weapon offenses.
If you look at all these statistics, they show that uniforms
work.
Uniforms do many things to make schools better places to
learn. First, in some parts of the nation, kids are getting
hurt and even killed over expensive clothing. A child wearing
"Air Jordan" shoes was hurt badly, because a kid
attacked him and stole them. By requiring uniforms, everyone
would have the same clothing on, so no one would have a reason
to steal other people's clothing.
Also, there have been problems with intruders coming into
schools. Since every student in the school would have the
same uniform on, teachers and principals could immediately
tell when intruders were in the school, because the intruders
would not be wearing the school uniform.
Last, if some kids from a gang were in the school they would
probably want to wear gang logos and colors to school. Uniforms
would prevent this from happening. This might even prevent
kids from joining gangs, because there are no logos or colors
to influence students.
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