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Justice Dept. Seeks to Protect Student's Right to Wear
Headscarf
Washington File (03.31.04)
"Religious
discrimination has no place in American schools"
The
Department of Justice announced March 30 that it will seek to intervene in a
lawsuit pending against the Muskogee, Oklahoma, Public School District to
protect the right of a sixth-grade Muslim girl to wear a headscarf to school.
"No
student should be forced to choose between following her faith and enjoying the
benefits of a public education," said Assistant Attorney General R.
Alexander Acosta. "We certainly respect local school systems' authority to
set dress standards, and otherwise regulate their students, but such rules
cannot come at the cost of constitutional liberties. Religious discrimination
has no place in American schools."
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Plaid's
Out, Again, As Schools Give Up Requiring Uniforms:
by: Kate Zernike, New York Times, (09.13.02)
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"Many
public schools caught up in school uniform craze of 1990's are giving up on it,
finding that requiring students to wear uniforms causes too many problems;
…. in California alone, at least 50 schools have abandoned uniforms in last
two years; school officials report defections in Florida, Kansas and New
Hampshire; uniforms first took hold as way of dealing with gang colors and
improving school security in mid-1990's; Pres Bill Clinton urged uniforms in two
State of Union addresses, and Pres Bush allowed tax break for them; in many
places, problems increased as infractions built up and uniforms became stigma marking poor students."
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Mums
call for action on gangs preying on children
by: Alex Melvin Harrow Times, (07.05.04)
TWO Kingsbury mothers are
calling for action to rid the area of teenage gangs after both of their sons
were mugged twice in the exact same place within a month....
The second mother told a
similarly disturbing tale. Her 15-year-old son, whom she wishes to remain
anonymous for fear of reprisals, was also mugged twice in the same area as
Saajan.
His
attacker was also a 15 or 16-year-old black youth, wearing Kingsbury High School
uniform.
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School
Dress Codes and Uniform Policies: Policy Report
by: Wendell Anderson, ERIC, (Number 4, Fall 2002)
"…
the research data don’t
show an absolutely clear link between dress and students’
behavior or performance.”
…
“But
while the debate over dress codes and school uniforms rages, there is one point
almost everyone agrees on: Student
dress does not cause or will not cure all the ills facing our schools.”
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Uniforms
and Dress-Code Policies
by: Linda Lumsden, ERIC, (Digest No. 148, May 2001)
"it is naive to think of uniforms or
restrictive dress codes as a stand-alone solution to the safety concerns and
discipline problems that plague many schools today."
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There's still no evidence that
school uniforms do any real good
by: John Ehinger, Alabama Live, (11.05.00)
"But
again, I have to offer a warning: Public-school parents - whether here or
anywhere else - should not be sent on retail expeditions to buy school-dictated
clothing for their kids. And why not? Because there's
not one iota of tangible evidence that I can find supporting the belief that
dressing kids alike turns them into better students or less violent people."
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The
dangers of the school uniform movement
by
Gary Peter Klahr, Oblivion
Why
should you be upset over uniforms and put it No. 1 on your action list if it is
being threatened in your community? The
simple answer is that uniforms are designed to instill conformity and
communitarian group-think -- akin to Fascism. This is openly admitted by many
proponents. They falsely feel kids already have too much freedom of
expression and they want a placid, conformist student body -- allegedly to stop
gangs and guns. Uniforms are an attack on two privileges permitted by most
present dress codes -- informality and diversity.
Gary
Peter Klahr is a retired Phoenix attorney and former High School Governing Board
Member
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School Uniforms: Seeing
Schoolchildren as Canned Sardines
by: Jordan Riak, http://nospank.org/uniforms.htm
There
is a universal belief among parents that by controlling their
children's lives down to the smaller details, they can help
determine their destiny, or at least steer them past the worst
pitfalls. In these rapidly-changing times, the illusion
is comforting, and frightened parents are apt to seize upon any
strategy, including look-alike packaging of their offspring,
that seems to assure their safety and success.
Perhaps
a more accurate, though less flattering, interpretation of
parents' compulsion to micromanage their children, is that they
are acting, not out of a desire to protect and nurture, but
rather out of their own morbid fear of freedom derived from
their own overcontrolled upbringing. Such parents' first impulse
is to thwart the natural freedom-striving of their children
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Parents across the
South battle mandatory school dress codes
by:
David Hudson, First Amendment Center (08.17.99)
The
struggle over school uniforms appears to be growing. Gary Peter
Klahr, a Phoenix-based attorney who has handled several student
uniform cases, calls Southern parents' resistance to school
uniforms the "Southern Uniform Rebellion.
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All Dressed Up and Nowhere
to Go: Students and Their Parents Fight School Uniform Policies
by:
ACLU Feature (11.04.99)
In
its Tinker decision, the Supreme Court declared that "state-sponsored
schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism." But
three decades later, students are still subjected to repressive
measures and their basic liberties are frequently trampled by
school administrators and politicians.
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No objective evidence that codes improve the
education system
by
Chris Doucette, Toronto Observer, (02.21.01)
"But
no objective evidence exists for that view, and some educators
believe the reasoning is deepy (sic) flawed ... Kurniski
was teaching at R.H. King before the uniform policy took effect
and is still teaching there today. She has never had any problems
in her classroom, so she
hasn't noticed any differences in the attitudes of the students,
she said."
"In
fact, no hard evidence has been produced to indicate that uniforms
will help with behavioural (sic) problems or improve grades, ...
"In terms of grades and behaviour (sic), uniforms definitely
won't make a difference," said Rebecca Hollingsworth-Moffitt,
a special education resource teacher at H.A. Halbert Junior Public
School in Scarborough."
"I
teach in an elementary school so I don't see how uniforms are
going to help with security. Parents don't wear uniforms."
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Do
They Reduce Violence--Or Just Make Us Feel Better
by
Kathleen L. Paliokas and Ray C. Rist, Education
Week on the WEB, (04.03.96)
"Making
policy decisions based on information that is incomplete,
misleading, or absent is risky, because we do not know what we do
not know. Along with the
euphoria of early results comes the tendency to overstate possible
benefits and overlook potential costs. The sense of having
a safety crisis in our schools impels us to act before we think.
In the case of public school uniforms, it may be wise to pause and
assess the implications of our actions."
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School
Uniforms Lead To Fascism
by
J.C. Miller, SpinTech, (09.12.99)
Public
school administrators hate the sad truth -- private schools do
better. Instead of addressing the problems and waste in their
system, Janice Rocque says
"the public system thinks it can copy [the school uniform
policies] and make a huge difference." The fact that private
schools use uniforms is incidental. By ignoring the truth, the
public schools doom themselves to failure. The real
question is, what's going to happen when uniforms fail?
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The Problems with School Uniforms
by
R. Matthew Warner, Legalis, (00.00.01)
No empirical
evidence proves uniforms to be responsible for academic success or
crime reduction. Pedro Noguera, Professor of Education at
University of California Berkley, simply states, "I have
never seen any study that showed a connection between style of
dress and academic achievement." As previously stated, uniforms
have been known to hurt youths' cognitive development and foster a
sterile learning environment. These are serious
disadvantages to what should be an essential tool for helping an
educational environment. Why
should we, as the responsible public, want to detract from the
education of our children especially in a place where education is
supposed to be of top importance?
...
Finally,
school uniforms for public education is a bad idea because it
infringes on the child's basic rights under the First Amendment.
Even though dress codes also infringe upon children's entitlement
to freedom of speech, the establishment of school uniforms is
uniquely abusive and severe. Kathleen L. Paliokas, doctoral
student in educational policy at George Washington University,
explains this: "Because
a mandatory uniform policy decrees what students shall wear
instead of simply itemizing what they may not wear, uniforms are a
much more serious infringement of students' free expression rights
than are ordinary dress codes."
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Dress Code Policies Under Fire
by
Rachel Leone, Odessa
American,
(10.28.02)
"Parent
Tammy Ayers said she
would like to take back her vote in the election that put Hood
Junior High students, including her ninth-grade daughter, in
uniforms three years ago. “I would vote against them now,”
Ayers said. In
the last few years, Ayers and parents of students at every Odessa
junior high except Crockett, as well as Austin and Burleson
elementary schools, have voted to require students to wear
uniforms, or standard attire. Now, however, some parents have said
that the uniform policy is doing exactly the opposite of what it
was intended to do by cutting into instruction time and calling
attention to what students are wearing. Parents have said that
administrators are too picky about minor details such as the shape
of shirt collars (Hood requires pointed, not rounded) and the
color of socks (which parents argue can’t be seen under pants).
“I think they’re putting way too much emphasis on what our
kids look like rather than what they can teach our kids and what
they are like on the inside,” Ayers said. "
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School
Suspends 64 For Not Tucking Shirts
The New Mexico
Channel (10.02.02)
DEMING,
N.M. -- Deming High School has suspended
64 students for a day because their shirttails were not tucked in,
officials said.
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Dad
takes uniform fight to state - Judge agrees By Zeke
MacCormack, San Antonio Express-News (10.11.02)
"While
Bates has attacked the district's claims that uniforms improve
student esteem and behavior, Administrative Law Judge Christopher
Maska found Bates also had a bona fide philosophical objection.
In a proposal for decision issued Aug. 2, Maska labeled the
district's denial of Bates' request in 2001 "arbitrary,
capricious and not supported by substantial evidence."
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Kindergartner
wrongly suspended
Sumpter
County Record Journal (12.11.03)
"Ronald
Wayne Dennis, Jr., 5, was suspended for one day for not wearing a
belt to school. There were two problems with the interpretation of
this child’s violation.First of all, the Sumter County School
System’s Code of Student Conduct, does not say students must
wear belts. Secondly, the child did not have belt loops in his
pants."
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Program
aims to resolve truancy cases outside of court By: Jo Ann
Zuniga, Houston Chronicle (01.31.04)
Juan
stopped going to class when his parents couldn't afford to buy him
a school uniform.
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A
Plain School Uniform as the Latest Aphrodisiac By:
Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times
(01.31.04)
Behind
the image clubs is a disturbing national obsession with
schoolgirls as sexual objects.
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