Should Public Schools Be Allowed To Wear School Uniforms?

Did you know that (according to Newsela’s school uniforms article) 1 in 5 public schools require students to wear uniforms in the 2013-2014 school year. That is compared to 1 in 8 students in the 2003-2004 school year. I think that public schools should not be allowed to enforce students to wear school uniforms. They limit students ability to express themselves and they also emphasize socioeconomic divisions. Schools should be embracing diversity rather than enforcing uniformity.

First off school uniforms not only limit students to express themselves but they also lead to no individuality in the school. For example, even though some students might be very outgoing and wearing a uniform might not affect their ability to express themselves, other students may be introverts and might only really get to express themselves through their clothes. Which means if someone were to walk through a school wearing uniforms they might not see a lot of individuality. Procon.orgs school uniforms article says that the First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees all individuals to have the right to express themselves freely. So if public schools started enforcing school uniforms than they would be taking away this right from students. If you go to a private school that

wears uniforms that is fine because either you or your parent made that choice to pay to attend that school. But most of the time you are not choosing to go to a certain public school, you just go to the school where they live. So it’s not fair if you don’t get to choose whether or not they will be wearing uniforms.
Although lots of people think that school uniforms would conceal schools differences and socioeconomic divisions they actually emphasize them.

Surprisingly, high-poverty areas are more likely to wear uniforms than other areas. In fact, 47% of high poverty areas required students to wear school uniforms, but only 6% of low poverty schools did. So if a school requires uniforms then most people might assume that it is a high poverty area. Which obviously means that it’s not going to conceal poverty but it will just emphasize the facts that the school might be in a high poverty area because they are wearing uniforms. And in the long run uniforms or not it’s not going to change the wealth of a

student.
Some people think that enforcing school uniforms would stop bullying, but that's not the case. Although enforcing school uniforms might reduce bullying in certain students life, it’s not going to completely stop it. Besides, not all students are bullied for what they wear. So requiring school uniforms probably would not change their bullying situation. But for students who are bullied for what they wear, bullies will still find something to make fun of them for. Bullies will stop at nothing to make others feel bad about themselves, so they will just find something else to tease kids about. According to procon.org, there is no actual evidence in bullying literature that supports the fact that there was a reduction in bullying due to school uniforms.