args

School uniforms ought to be worn in primary and secondary schools.

I thank my opponent for participating in this debate. I will begin by rebutting his contentions and will then move on to my own. ======== "Consider why judges wear judicial robes. Clearly, the judicial system would not disintegrate if judges dresses casually. Nonetheless, it is virtually universally accepted that there is an incremental gain in focusing both the judge and the court proceeding that improves justice." I would argue that the practice of judges wearing judicial uniforms is an unnecessary one, but that is not my main argument. My main point is that this is an improper analogy. Judges lead court hearings, and are the focus of attention. Students are not. A better analogy would be a uniform for the jury. But the jury does not wear a uniform [1], so this analogy in fact works in favor of con; what the jury wears in practice is more analogous to a dress code. A dress code is a "formally or socially imposed standard of dress" [2], and refers to types of clothing more than a specific uniform. I do support a dress code, as it is not appropriate to wear just anything to school, but a uniform is excessive. Back to the analogy, the judge is more analogous to the teacher. So this point argues more that teachers should wear uniforms, not students. "We see also se [sic] this in the practices of the police, military, security guards, airline pilots, nurses (and doctors' white coats), professional chefs, and many private companies, like package delivery services." All the named professions are very specialized. For many of these, the reason for wearing a uniform is clear: so that they are easily recognizable. In a hospital, for example, it would not do to confuse the nurses with the patients. And police should be recognizable so that we can quickly get help from them. But there is no such need for students to be recognizable. "Catholic schools, which mostly have uniforms, succeed better than public schools. There are differences besides uniforms that lead to better performance in these schools, but they all relate to discipline and focus." 1) How is my opponent quantifying success/performance? 2) My opponent has not provided evidence to support these claims. 3) Catholic schools differ from public schools in many ways, and any of these differences could be responsible. An increase in discipline may not be responsible. The main reason is probably parental attitude. Parents who are willing to spend extra money to send their children to private school clearly care about their children's education. It is easy to see how this attitude can lead to an increase in school performance. My opponent cites a study showing a potential correlation between school uniforms and reduced crime rate. However, the study is incomplete. Many policies (schoolwide, citywide, etc) can change in six years, and there is very little evidence that school uniforms were the cause of the change. The study my opponent cited also stated that "there is little research on the effectiveness of school uniforms." [3] Correlation, while something, is far from evidence. Additionally, the credibility of the study is questionable. Why would school uniforms, admitted by my opponent to probably only cause "an incremental gain" in performance, lead to such dramatic changes? Very few policies could cause that sort of change. I would need some proof of the credibility of this study before I would accept this extraordinary evidence. "2) [...] It puts everyone in the same boat so they are more likely to help each other succeed." Why do students not cooperate? Why do they instead compete? Am I supposed to believe that students aren't cooperating because they're wearing different CLOTHING? "This is a reason why players on sports teams wear identical uniforms." A school is not a sports team. If students are made to wear uniforms, it will emphasize the divisions between different schools or school districts. In sports, these divisions are necessary, but a school is not a sports team. Uniforms are potentially harmful for this reason. Addressing the original point, my opponent seems to be saying that uniforms improve sense of unity. Even if they do, how is this beneficial to a scholastic setting? Fast-paced communal reactions are unnecessary. "3) It removes the distractions of fashion trends" The concept of fashion trends being distracting is pure fiction. Distractions occur due to boring material or boring teachers, and school uniforms don't fix that. "4) [...] reduce clothing costs." I hardly see how buying an extra article of clothing could reduce costs. Yes, the school system can provide uniforms for lower-income families, but the money has to come from somewhere – and that somewhere is taxes. Why not skip a step and just shift more of the tax burden to the rich? Chasing fashion fads may be expensive, but it's optional. Parents do not have to buy so much clothing for their children. Additionally, children will want to have fashionable clothing for outside of school: who would wear a school uniform all the time? So in the end, no money is saved. *** My opponent cites a study by Mrunsma and Rokquemore: "The key defects are that the study contained almost no public schools, and even more importantly, never considered data from the same school before and after the policies were implemented." The study used the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, a nationally representative set of schools [4]. While it is true that they did not compare schools before and after uniform policies were implemented, this is irrelevant. Firstly, they reduced bias by accounting for other variables such as school location. Secondly, comparing schools before and after is still biased because it is highly likely that something besides school uniform policy changed between the first and second studies. "If dramatic improvement could be achieved effortlessly, the "reforms" would surely be adopted universally, which they were not." This is self-defeating: if school uniforms could achieve dramatic improvement, they would be adopted universally, which they were not. ======== The character limit approaches, so I will keep my contentions short. It is worth noting that several potential contentions have already been addressed above: for instance, I could make the point that school uniforms are expensive, but I already made that point in response to my opponent's fourth contention. Pre-Contention: Unless school uniforms are proven to be more beneficial than detrimental, there is no reason to use them. All else being equal, a school uniform is an unnecessary entity. Contention 1: School uniforms restrict the students' self-expression. Many students feel that the best way to express themselves is through their form of dress, and if they are required to wear school uniforms, it stifles creativity and self-expression. I concede that uniforms are not the only means of self-expression, but students will still feel stifled and many will be unsuccessful at finding alternative means of expression. Some students may even use inappropriate means of self-expression such as painting graffiti on school property, rebounding and dressing overly inappropriately, or bullying or harming other students. Contention 2: School uniforms greatly limit the potential for diversity. Cultural uniqueness, for instance, is usually promoted through clothing. Contention 3: School uniforms enforce conformity, and conformity is stifling to creativity and originality. Even the limited conformity enforced by school uniforms is still stifling. Conformity leads to stagnation. ======== I thank my opponent for this debate and look forward to his response. [1] ehow.com/how_13928_dress-jury-duty.html [2] merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dress%20code (definition) [3] findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3626/is_200310/ai_n9248791/pg_7 [4] nces.ed.gov/surveys/NELS88/