Controversy Over The Use Of School Uniforms

Not very many schools around the United States make their students wear uniforms. According to the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, during the 2013-14 school year only fifteen percent of schools required their students to wear uniforms. Some people believe that the use of uniforms will help decrease the amount of bullying and crime in schools. They also believe that by wearing uniforms, students will focus more on their school work instead of their clothes. On the other hand, I believe that the use of school uniforms limits a student's freedom to express themselves. Also, I believe school uniforms don’t help the amount of bullying, it could even make it worse if someone can’t afford a uniform. Lastly,
It has the potential to even make it worse if someone can not afford to buy a school uniform. According to Tony Volk, Associative Professor at Brock University, “Overall, there is no evidence in bullying literature that supports a reduction in violence due to school uniforms.” This piece of evidence shows that the use of school uniforms hasn’t changed any type of bullying in schools. According to a Texas Southern University study, violence in schools rose about twelve percent after school uniforms were introduced. This shows that wearing school uniforms doesn’t help with bullying people about their clothing and actually makes bullying and violence worse. School uniforms do not help with bullying and make it worse than it should
They say that by using the uniforms it basically prevents all of the bad things that happen in schools from happening, but that’s just not possible. David L. Brunsma, a researcher at the University of Missouri-Columbia, has been studying the use of school uniforms since the year of 1996. His main conclusion of the whole study is that school uniforms don’t really do that much. He writes in The School Uniform Movement and What It Tells Us About American Education, “despite the anecdotal meanderings of politicians, community members, educators, board members, parents, and students, uniforms have not been effective at attacking the very outcomes and issues they were assumed to aid.” This basically means that despite many people’s beliefs about the use of school uniforms being a great way to stop many issues in schools, they didn’t do that job. In conclusion, I believe that school uniforms really don’t have a use and should not be used in schools. They limit students ability to express themselves through their clothing. They also don’t help with bullying and violence, they even make it worse. Lastly they don’t help with grades and attendance in school. There is no legitimate reason for schools to make their students wear these school uniforms and I believe that we should exclude school uniforms from all