School Uniforms in Long Beach

Re “A Fashion Statement With Real Meaning,” Aug. 19: Long Beach Unified School District uses school uniforms to treat symptoms rather than causes.

The problems are violence, substandard scholastic effort, discipline and low test scores. The problem is not fashion.

I resent the fact that the school district did not handle these problems because suspensions/expulsions lose state funding, which is paid on a per-capita, per-diem basis.

Instead, they forced a districtwide edict, thereby punishing the majority of well-behaved, productive students because of the problem few.

FRANCESCA GARD

Lakewood

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* As a consumer behavior researcher who specializes in the symbolic aspects of products, a professor who specializes in teaching marketing research, and a mother of a child who is in the Long Beach school district (which instituted a uniform policy last year), I strongly urge very critical assessment of the magical numbers reported by the district. These numbers seem to indicate a drop in most types of campus incidents by the truly astonishing magnitudes of 30%, 50% and 70%; these numbers are inappropriately attributed to the district’s uniform policy. Any policy of social control (short of hiring a force of armed guards) that produced these kinds of numbers would be truly amazing. I have saved the article to use in my marketing research class as a classic case of misguided and incorrect causal inference-making.

The district has not undertaken a serious and balanced approach to investigating the true effects of a uniform policy on student behavior because it has a vested interest in showing that the policy works. Not the only research issue, but perhaps the most important is that the district does not seem to consider alternative explanations for the findings. Were other policies instituted this year to accompany the new uniform policy? Were teachers more motivated to prevent these incidents as a result of the frequently stated goals of the uniform policy? Were teachers less likely to report marginal incidents formally because of their support for the new uniform policy? Are these results obtained from the first year merely a placebo?

In the grand misguided tradition of looking for simple solutions to complex, multi-causal phenomena, too many policy-makers and others are looking for a panacea. My 11-year-old son has pointed out that if in fact wearing uniforms causes a decrease in socially undesirable behavior, it should be mandated by the federal government for all U.S. citizens.

MARY WOLFINBARGER

Long Beach