When you think of Huntsville, AL, does the term “gang” even slightly come to mind? Sounds more like an SNL skit comprised of a bunch of rednecks like me sporting overalls and straw toothpicks and carrying slingshots to intimidate the rival trailer trash gang who uses mullet whips and Pabst Blue Ribbon assault bottles.

A month ago, a fourteen year old student, Todd T. Brown, died at Huntsville Hospital after being shot in the back of the head at Discovery Middle School in Madison, a city that borders Huntsville. The shooter was a wanna-be gangsta who wanted out of the gangsta lifestyle. Fearing he would get beat up by his fellow members, he decided to shoot one of the kids instead of just take a few punches. Because of this incident, Huntsville City Schools Board member Laurie McCaulley is proposing a system wide uniform policy. The shooting didn’t even take place in her jurisdiction.

McCaulley knows who I am quite well. I’ve addressed her and the board in person and attended numerous meetings. She also knows me from the lawsuit she’s going to have to answer for.

According to WAAYTV.com, McCaulley thinks that adopting a uniform policy will cut down on bullying and gangs that apparently reside in neighboring school districts. The only gangs I’ve ever seen in the schools were actually employed by the city! They’re paid to bully students and parents and they have yet to be required to wear uniforms. Maybe UAH should also adopt a uniform amongst its staff to prevent more professors from murdering people too.

The sad fact is that there is no evidence that school uniforms will prevent another shooting, reduce gangs, or cut down on bullying. I defy Ms. McCaulley to produce some hard evidence to support these claims. I’ve done the research, which is how I came to my newfound ardent opposition to school uniforms thanks to the Huntsville City Schools Gang. I wrote about the REAL research that proves MY point and contradicts what Ms. McCaulley is trying to bully students into. First, here’s an instance of how school uniforms prevent gangs activity and bullying:

Oh wait, they didn’t prevent anything. But, let’s get back to the research. McCaulley says that if she can’t institute a system-wide policy, she wants to focus elementary and middle school uniform policies. After all, elementary schools are a breeding ground for gang activity and bullying. I remember vividly my 6-year old daughter coming home with red crayon markings all over her because she dared to wear a My Little Pony t-shirt, a major elementary school gang mascot. The next day she was accosted with Elmer’s glue for taking her Rainbow Bright notebook out, a clear violation of the Rainbow Bright 1st Grade gang. We decided it was best to just have her wear Star Wars clothes, but then the middle school Jedi Gang got upset and threatened to cut her right hand off with a lightsaber.

Uniforms are not the answer to gang activity and bullying. The answer lies with parents first and school administrators second. If a child is bullying, kick them out of school! Suspend them! The problem is twofold, but begins in the home. A uniform won’t change the fact that a parent doesn’t know what their children are doing on the weekends or after school. A uniform won’t change the actions of a kid getting beaten at home at taking that anger out on weaker kids at school. Uniforms won’t change the fact that most of the kids who are even prone to engage in gang activity come from single parent homes where the parent is working multiple jobs and doesn’t have quality time to spend with their child. Uniforms won’t change the root cause of issues of violence in our schools – lack of conflict resolution skills, poor self esteem, and instilling discipline and pride. Setting and enforcing curfews in public areas among young people would go further to preventing gang activity than any uniform.

One of the foremost authorities on the school uniform debate comes from Dr. David L. Brunsma, who wrote a book titled “Uniforms in Public Schools: A Decade of Research and Debate” (Rowman & Littlefield Education; illustrated edition edition (December 13, 2005)) has done more research on this topic than anyone. It started back in 1996 while reading the text of President Clinton’s State of the Union Address where he first “introduced the concept of uniforms into the public school system.

I challenge all our schools to teach character education, to teach good values and good citizenship. And if it means that teenagers will stop killing each other over designer jackets, then our public schools should be able to require their students to wear school uniforms.

Interesting, though, that they won’t heed what President Clinton said just before this comment.

I challenge every state to give all parents the right to choose which public school their children will attend; and to let teachers form new schools with a charter they can keep only if they do a good job.

But, I digress. The Department of Education responded to President Clinton’s call for school uniforms and created a “Manual on School Uniforms.” It’s still on the Department’s web page. In the user’s guide section, a very important statement is made that “for uniforms to be a success, as with all other school initiatives, parents must be involved.” To be fair, this is something that Ms. McCaulley is advocating, according to the WAAYTV article.

McCaulley plans to the other board members to create a committee. That committee would get feedback from parents using surveys. Then, the information will be used to determine if parents would support a system wide uniform policy. McCaulley says, the idea of uniforms actually came from teachers.

The Clinton administration gave a few POTENTIAL benefits of going to a school uniform policy within public schools:

* decreasing violence and theft — even life-threatening situations — among students over designer clothing or expensive sneakers;
* helping prevent gang members from wearing gang colors and insignia at school;
* instilling students with discipline;
* helping parents and students resist peer pressure;
* helping students concentrate on their school work; and
* helping school officials recognize intruders who come to the school.

With over a decade of research on the topic now available, have those potential benefits been realized. Dr. Brunsma says no.

“To state the results of that study in a nutshell, we found that uniform policies did NOT distinguish between students who had attendance problems, behavioral problems, or substance use problems and those who did not. Furthermore, uniforms FAILED, in our empirical analyses, to increase academic preparedness, pro-school attitudes, or a peer structure that supported academics. Finally, to our surprise, we found a small, weak, yet statistically significant negative effect of uniform policies on” violence.

Yet, because one wanna-be gang banger decides to murder a fellow student, HSC doesn’t want to waste a good tragedy in implementing their authoritarian leadership on the citizens that pay taxes to fund those decisions (like me). They will ignore that students at schools that require uniforms score lower on tests, more behavior problems, and violence won’t be affected according to Bunsma’s research. Students can hide a weapon inside a uniform just as they can inside a pair of jeans. What our educators need to be doing is enforcing their own current dress policies and actively taking an interest in students as individual people and a collective group of cattle.

Ms. McCaulley and other uniform proponents have no facts from which to base their assertions that uniforms work. They cling to anecdotal stories from the perspectives of educators while ignoring real research. Uniforms cost families more, cost taxpayers more, and don’t provide any benefit to anyone other than the companies supplying them. Developers become huge contributors to so-called vouchers to assist with purchasing uniforms not because they will help students, but because there is a perception (and probably a reality) that uniforms increase home values. I’m also surprised that in the WAAYTV poll, 64% of those polled think uniforms are a good idea – probably the teachers and school administrators taking the poll.

For more on my writings and research of school uniforms, click the “school uniforms” tag on this post.