School Uniforms DBQ Essay

All parents desire school to be ensconced and inviolable, for a child, but will uniforms relieve them? Today, mandatory uniform policies are being bolstered throughout the nation, due to schools presuming that uniforms will decrease violence, improve test scores and grades, and instill discipline. However, this is not the case, for uniforms, alone, do not instill discipline, nor do they decrease violence; in fact, uniforms provide negligible improvement in test scores, but this does not compensate for the violation of students’ constitutional rights and liberties. School uniforms are not a necessity; for they only instill a dress code, not a code of conduct. Today, drugs and alcohol are prevalent amongst children, but will uniforms halt this?

This is a negligible improvement in “academic preparedness”(Document C). Indeed, this is an improvement, but a very minimal one, for it gets outweighed by the negative features school uniforms tote. Another major aspect of school is a child's presence which saw “ no relationship between wearing uniforms… and absenteeism”(Document C). Many believed that school uniforms would advocate towards discipline, but if anything it decreased it. Ongoing with discipline the transfer from regular clothes to school uniforms saw a schools “in-school suspensions [skyrocket] to 19 percent” along with “out-of-school suspensions, … [jumping] to 40 percent”(Document D). This solely affirms that uniforms do not help children, if anything it affects them, adversely. Not only do uniforms impact students negatively, but they also violate their constitutional rights. The implying of school uniforms may interrupt the practice of a religion for a child. This may apply to “religious clothing like yarmulkes”(Document B). The enforcing of clothes may also violate a students’ right to freedom of expression through their clothing. It it comprehensible if it conveys an inappropriate image, but not if it does not correlate with the dress code. The implementation of uniforms may affect the child not only inside of school, but also outside through their religion and