School uniforms are negatively correlated with student performance

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teeny bopper made in china clothing manufacturers don't like school uniforms.

Less money wasted on the slave china labor and their scum government.

The Chinese government is laughing at American stupidity.

I'm sure that argument will persuade families at Janney and Deal to impose a uniform.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to Catholic schools and we wore uniforms. What is the big deal? Now my kids are in a DCPS school which has uniforms. It makes getting ready for school a breeze.

Are non-uniform clothes harder to put on?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, because kids at National Cathedral School and St. Alban's are really underperforming because of the uniforms.

Silly argument.

I don't read it as an argument. I read is as a statement of fact that most DCPS schools with high test scores choose not to have uniforms. No breaking news.

[Anonymous]

Sunrise is positively correlated with Egg Mcmuffins.

[Anonymous]

Are you that stupid? With uniforms you don't have to pick out outfits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you that stupid? With uniforms you don't have to pick out outfits.

If choosing what to wear every day is too hard for DCPS students, then it is no surprise that test scores are in the toilet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you that stupid? With uniforms you don't have to pick out outfits.

If choosing what to wear every day is too hard for DCPS students, then it is no surprise that test scores are in the toilet.

I ardently wish my DC's school had uniforms. I would have saved so much time lost in the mornings because the pink socks were the 'wrong' pink for the blouse DC was wearing, saved time explaining why DC can't wear the superman costume to school in 95 degree weather, saved time with teens parsing the exact meaning of fingertip length shorts in the dress code....I went to schools in a country where almost all kids, public and private, wre uniforms. Noone suffered.


In fact I'd like to see the studies which show that, the year after a school instituted uniforms, the test scores for that same student group plummeted

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The relationship is starkly clear in DC. Schools without uniforms are at the top of every performance metric. It can't be a coincidence. It's not just income related because lower income students in schools without uniforms do better than students with similar incomes in schools with uniforms.

Low income students in schools with income diversity do better than low income students in schools where most of the students are poor.

I think the correlation is that in schools where more students are poor, uniforms are more likely. Probably other things are more likely too: increased disciplinary actions against kids; more drill-based instruction vs. less exploratory/project-based instruction; rote memorization; narrower curriculum with more emphasis on math and language arts and less on arts/music/PE.

Do you think uniforms are a good thing? For some schools, but not all? If so, why?

I don't really have an opinion on whether uniforms are a good thing or not. My schools growing up had uniforms (public, not in this country) -- at the time, I hated them. The purported benefit was always that they erased class/income distinctions, which I don't think is actually true. But they do help you find all the kids from a school in a crowd (on an elementary field trip, e.g.) and I guess they have disciplinary effects in high school (are you less likely to sneak a smoke behind the school building if you are in a uniform? I don't know, maybe?).

[Anonymous]

Shepherd has uniforms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, because kids at National Cathedral School and St. Alban's are really underperforming because of the uniforms.

Silly argument.

St Alban's doesn't have a uniform.

Sure they do. Salmon pants and white oxford shirt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, because kids at National Cathedral School and St. Alban's are really underperforming because of the uniforms.

Silly argument.

St Alban's doesn't have a uniform.

Sure they do. Salmon pants and white oxford shirt.

Cue some priss coming in to say "That's a DRESS CODE, not a UNIFORM" with the subtext that uniforms are for poors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, because kids at National Cathedral School and St. Alban's are really underperforming because of the uniforms.

Silly argument.

St Alban's doesn't have a uniform.

Sure they do. Salmon pants and white oxford shirt.

Cue some priss coming in to say "That's a DRESS CODE, not a UNIFORM" with the subtext that uniforms are for poors.

Most of the DC schools that have "uniforms" really just have dress code (color requirements).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, because kids at National Cathedral School and St. Alban's are really underperforming because of the uniforms.

Silly argument.

St Alban's doesn't have a uniform.

Sure they do. Salmon pants and white oxford shirt.

Cue some priss coming in to say "That's a DRESS CODE, not a UNIFORM" with the subtext that uniforms are for poors.

I think the salmon pants reference was a joke. Woosh.

And it is a dress code, by the way. Any color pants, any collared shirt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The relationship is starkly clear in DC. Schools without uniforms are at the top of every performance metric. It can't be a coincidence. It's not just income related because lower income students in schools without uniforms do better than students with similar incomes in schools with uniforms.

OP, I think it's great that you've suddenly decided to take an interest in statistics. It's good to understand the facts that get presented to us on a regular basis and learn to interpret them a bit more cannily than the average bear. One thing you will learn in your study is that when you are considering something like "student performance" it's helpful to be really specific about what you mean. Do you mean "higher test scores"? Do you mean "fewer disciplinary actions"? Do you mean "better educational outcomes" and if so, over what time period?

It's also helpful to think about data that may disprove your hypothesis. If you are suggesting, for example, that students who wear uniforms have poor educational outcomes overall, and that the uniform is directly responsible for those outcomes, consider that professional athletes, members of the military, and many other professions wear "uniforms." In some cases, the uniform is a good delineator of group membership - an athlete whose team wears red and white can generally recognize other players wearing that uniform as being on their team, and players wearing blue and yellow as not being on that team. There is also the other side of that particular argument, which could be made by saying that criminal gangs also use uniforms to distinguish between members and non-members. Crips wore/wear blue, for example, while Bloods wore/wear red.

You also have the issue of dress codes, which are less rigidly enforced uniforms. The dress codes at DC private schools, for example, may actually be stricter than the uniform policy at my DD's Title 1 school. Lawyers tend to wear suits, which is certainly a kind of uniform. When we are invited to a wedding, we do not tend to wear jeans and flip flops, because we understand, socially, that a certain type of attire is required for certain situations.

My point is that a lot of things are correlated with poor educational outcomes, whether those be in the form of test scores or discipline, and if you want your statement to carry any actual meaning, you should probably be more specific about the strength of the correlation, rather than simply its negative orientation. Are uniforms more strongly correlated with poor educational outcomes, for example, than family educational history? Than income level? Than race? Than geographic location?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, because kids at National Cathedral School and St. Alban's are really underperforming because of the uniforms.

Silly argument.

St Alban's doesn't have a uniform.

Sure they do. Salmon pants and white oxford shirt.

Cue some priss coming in to say "That's a DRESS CODE, not a UNIFORM" with the subtext that uniforms are for poors.

Most of the DC schools that have "uniforms" really just have dress code (color requirements).

PP here. Certainly that's correct, but they're pretty much all happy to call it a uniform if they require navy pants and a white shirt or green shirt and khaki pants. It's only when you get into high income schools who are horrified to be lumped in with the poors that you start getting people going spare about dress code vs. uniform. See every thread about Hardy, for example.