Is a student's outfit an opportunity to express him or herself? 

Is a school an appropriate place to express him or herself?  Or should school be like a place of business where expressing yourself is discouraged?

The school uniform debate continues to rage in most districts.  Like most educational fixes, you can find research to support both sides.  One side being that school uniforms improve performance and the other side being that it does nothing.  Notice that almost no one argues that school uniforms will hurt performance.  The worst that school uniforms would do is possibly create some extra disciplinary actions enforcing them but I am sure that students who cannot adhere to a simple uniform code probably would be lashing out in another way throughout the day.

 I am not just speaking of schools with gang problems. I don't think there is a school that would not benefit from introducing school uniforms.  

 I am pretty sure that most junior and high schools who do not have school uniforms, have dress codes.  I have heard that dress codes are much more of a problem than school uniforms.  There is way too much grey area when it comes to enforcing school dress codes.

School uniforms can also make things a lot more comfortable for teachers on campus.  If you have been to a school without a dress code you will understand.  I teach Kindergarten at a school with no official dress code and about 8 years ago at the height of the Spice Girls popularity 5 year old girls were dressing like 20 year old girls and it became a real problem.

I was lucky enough to go to junior high school in the 80's when the popular look was the "preppy look".  Can you imagine how lucky schools were to have all the kids dressed as "preppies"?  Even the tough kids were wearing lacrosse shirts and khackis!