“TOM HENSHAW - Another good idea gone Wrong - Abington Mariner”

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TOM HENSHAW - Another good idea gone Wrong - Abington Mariner Posted: 12 Apr 2010 11:36 AM PDT This column was first printed in the Sept. 18, 2002 paper. It seemed like a good idea at the time but so, they tell me, did prohibition. It appears that the strict school uniform codes which were held out as a panacea in the 1990s for everything that is wrong with our public school systems have started to go the way of the McGuffy Readers. In sunny California, where the school uniform craze was begun to reduce violence and distractions and promote equality a decade ago, at least 50 school districts have abandoned the idea. Everybody thought it was a good idea when it started in Long Beach in 1994. Gang colors, like those flaunted by the Crips and the Bloods, and provocative dress, like the low-cut denims and short blouses made famous by Britney Spear, were out. Identical uniforms, worn by rich kids and poor, majority and minority, so that you couldn't tell the difference, replaced more casual clothing. For good measure, the school logo was added. There was some grumbling. Parents found they now had to supervise dress before they hurried off to work. Kids found they had to keep two separate wardrobes, one for school and one for the mall. The schools relented. They took the logo off the uniforms. Then they proclaimed "casual Fridays" when the youngsters could wear what they wanted. Then they made the uniform code optional by waivers. "Soon," said the New York Times the other day, "teachers were wasting the first 10 minutes of class trying to figure out who had waivers and who was breaking the rules." "It became a huge distraction," said Beth Shedd, head of the math department at Sierra Vista Junior High School. "It increased friction, it increased discipline problems, having to worry about who was wearing what. It wasn't worth the fight." Sierra Vista gave up on uniforms. (Has anyone explored the idea that the alleged sorry state of our public schools is caused by the fact that teachers are so often called on to break up fights, check dress codes and collect lunch money that they don't have time to teach? But I digress . . .) School dress codes --- but not uniforms --- have led to some unusual ways of handling youngsters who are likely to come to school looking like hookers and pimps. Old Mill High School in Millersville, Md., holds an annual fashion show for incoming freshmen and their parents in which upperclassmen model both appropriate and inappropriate dress from their own closets. And every teacher at Old Mill High has a box of school T-shirts to distribute to those girls who show up with belly buttons showing and boys with inappropriate words and diagrams on their own shirts. Brophy Elementary School in Framingham has a simple test to determine if a student is wearing an acceptable shirt. He or she has to stand and raise his or her arms. If the student's midriff shows, it's back to the drawing board for a longer one. And that's an elementary school!     Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

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