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

My argument in this debate is that uniforms put people in a mode of focusing on the activity associated with the uniform. It also enhances the sense of unity behind a common purpose. The supporting evidence includes the self-assessment of judges, police officers, military people, and many others who say it has those effects. We also see it in the use of uniforms in many circumstances where identification is not required or could be achieved by lesser means. Con has offered no rebuttal evidence, but rather merely argues that he "doesn't see it." In the United States, there have been two major experiments in public schools, in Long Beach and Baltimore. Both produced resounding successes as measured by fewer incidents of discipline breaking down and by improved academic performance. All of the educators involved attribute the improvements to the uniforms policy. Exactly one study using erroneous statistical analysis methods opined the improvements must have come from something else, but they couldn't identify any specific policy changes as causes. The language of the study also makes the authors' bias apparent. Actual experience should prevail over biased statistical abuse that leaves the school transformations as essentially unexplained miracles. I acknowledge that there are many factors that go into educational performance. If parental concern is high, and students are successfully taught self-discipline in the home, then uniforms can only be expected to make a small difference. That's observed in the comparison of Catholic schools having and not having uniform policies. However, such is not typical of the United States, and that is why the Long Beach and Baltimore experiments were so successful. In societies that place a high value on education, uniforms probably have only a marginal effect, because parental concern and student self-discipline is consequently high. Nonetheless, these societies know what works and choose to make use of every incremental advantage. Countries like Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore all use uniforms as part of the set policies that lead to educational excellence. The do so despite having class sizes much larger than those in the United States, something only possible with exceptional student focus and discipline. I suspect that few American high school students want uniforms. I know I would not have wanted it when I was in high school. I also did not like quite a number of things forced upon me that turned out to be good in the long run. In retrospect, there are more things that would have been good in the long run, like a foreign language requirement, that I would not have liked at the time. The decision of what is good educational policy should be based upon objective outcomes, not student sentiment. Many students see no point in Math or English classes, and they are wrong about that too. I agreed that uniforms limit diversity. So do dress codes of any types. So do uniforms for sports teams and marching bands. I challenged Con to explain why it was a problem to limit diversity in the way students dress, when they will still be diverse in their thoughts, attitude, and cultural experience. The intellectual realm of diversity is what is important for schools, not clothing styles. Besides, how many students actually dress in costumes representative of their cultural heritage? Japanese in kimonos? Canadians in red and black checked shirts (that's what they wear at the Canadian exhibit at Epcot)? It's rare. I did not propose a dichotomy. I made the accurate observation that the academic benefit of diversity is in intellectual considerations, not traditional costumes. In fact, I suspect that while rare, some students who like to be unburdened from parents decisions on traditional costumes, so uniforms would be a step up for them. With respect o school unity, Con asks, "Why is it not desirable for students to compete on a more individual level? Schools are really more about individualism, and no student is ultimately responsible for another student's success." Students impact each others performance without being "ultimately responsible." The group effects include preserving order in the classroom so that time is not wasted on discipline problems, providing simple encouragement (like the universal anime school phrase, "do your best"), by avoiding peer pressure for students to ignore studies, and by helping fellow students in ways like sharing class notes and providing assignment to students out with illness. One way to keep advanced students for being bored is have them tutor students who are having difficulty. Also, if a student wants his school to do well, be will try a little harder to avoid being one who brings the school average down. In that respect it is like a member of sports team who wants to avoid being the one responsible for a loss, and so practices harder. Con argues, "Focus is most likely important. But why discipline? Only a relatively small fraction of students have real difficulty with authority. For others, relatively minor discipline is adequate, ..." The type of discipline related to serious rule breaking is a problem in some schools, but for many schools it is about avoiding minor class disruption, committing to doing school work, and in general treating school like a job. Schools in East Asia excel despite much larger class sizes than in the U.S., class sizes that educators believe would be unworkable here. Con argues, "Further enforcement of discipline would lead to dislike of and separatism from one's school, which is the very opposite of identity." The benefits of discipline outweigh the aversion to discipline, and students will come to realize that quickly. Members of highly disciplined professions like police and the military take pride in their uniforms because they recognize that their professions benefit from. I'm not suggesting anything nearly so severely disciplined for students; it is a matter of incremental gain. Students in the United States will benefit. The experiments prove it works. Are the children of parents who impose little discipline in fact happier than those who receive reasonable discipline? They are not. We are not talking about imposing military rules, just uniforms. "But requiring that students wear uniforms will do very little, if anything, to curtail students' desire for fashionableness." They may desire to be fashionable, but the ability to express the desire will be significantly limited by disallowing it at school. There are not many students who cannot afford uniforms compared to those who can. Consequently, having to subsidize poor students is a small cost. Baltimore parents paid for poor students uniforms and found that it nonetheless significantly lowered their overall costs. There is no reason why uniforms need to cost much more than ordinary clothing, and everybody has to wear something. What is avoided is expensive fashion. Con's arguments are that he doesn't like it and cannot see it. That's not an effective counter to the evidence of experience. We can understand why uniforms work effectively in many professions, and those reasons apply to schools. Moreover, the major experiments in Long Beach and Baltimore verify that they in fact work as expected. The resolution is affirmed. I will let Con conclude the debate in the next round, so that we have each had three opportunities to present arguments. I will pass in the last round.