Given the overwhelmingly positive effects of uniforms in school, why haven’t U.S. public schools adopted the policy yet? The rest of the world certainly has. Their schools enjoy a deeper sense of student unity, greater attention to learning content, and economic benefits for their students’ families.
Besides the denial of uniform policy’s influence on effective learning content, one argument I’ve heard–usually from students themselves–is that uniform policies infringe on their right to freedom of expression. But economic differences already infringe on students’ ability to express themselves, to an often damaging degree.
Anyone with experience with uniforms will say that when distractions like fashion are eliminated, learning content itself becomes more central in students’ experience at school. Another practical advantage of uniforms is the lift of the economic burden families face each school year in the purchasing of new school clothes.
