Hot Button Issues in Education Today: School Uniforms

Apparently the idea of school uniforms is one whose time has come. Approximately one-third of the students in California, Texas and New York are now in uniform. Urban area schools, in particular, are increasingly requiring school uniforms. For example,  Houston reports that 60 percent of students are wearing uniforms;  and in Los Angeles, 55 percent are in uniform. Overall, more than 15 million students nationwide are wearing a uniform to school, with well over half of these youngsters attending public schools.

School uniforms were first made mandatory in an urban public school in 1994, when Long Beach, Calif., Superintendent Carl Cohn required them in grades K-8. The nation’s largest school district, New York City, followed suit in 1999, with 72 percent of its 675 elementary schools adopting a standardized dress code.