Krystal Miller's School Dress Codes?

Dress codes have become a typical affair for public schools. The weight of this matter only gets heavier with time, as fashion trends evolve with haste. Accordingly, the debate for and against dress codes still stands. This essay will summarize, make an argument, and analyze Krystal Miller 's article "School Dress Codes." It is 1990, and inner-city schools in Detroit are seeing an alarming incline in crimes related to wardrobe in inner-city schools. Students have been physically beaten and stripped of their high-end clothing and accessories; some even killed. According to Miller, since the September prior to this article 's publication, ten students had been physically harmed during robberies of the victims clothing (86). School

First off, they are unequipped to solve problems such as violence in schools. Enforcing a school dress code may slow the occurrence of certain difficulties, such as violence and distraction, and can be vital to the well-being of students for a short time, but it does not tackle the origins of the attitudes that cause these problems. The head of psychological services for the Detroit school system, Mary Louise Starks says, "A dress code is a temporary measure that is limited in scope. Students are committing these crimes because they don 't have a sense of power or self-esteem. They steal from their peers to gain control over another person."(qtd. In Miller 87). The impulse to commit violent crimes is an issue within a student that schools cannot diffuse with rules and regulations. This is also applicable to the pretext that regulations are needed because of distractions caused by a student 's choice in clothing. This reasoning falls most heavily upon female students. For instance, if a female student came to school in shorts that were deemed "too short", she would be sanctioned, because according to some school administrators rational, girl 's bodies are too much of distraction in the classroom. Again, this does not answer the question as to why girl 's bodies are so sexualized, or why the idea that boys cannot control themselves exists, it only provides a quick and

Miller includes the quotes and opinions of both those in favor and not in favor, and does not impose her own views on the reader. This article was worth my time because it expanded my view of dress codes and the reasons they are established. It did not change my view per say, but I see now how at times they are necessary until deeper, more thorough changes can be made, especially when student 's lives are at stake. It is for this reason that schools in Detroit have taken action against crimes within the student population by adopting a dress code. Mumford High School was the first school in Detroit to enforce a dress code in 1986. The school also requires that all book bags be see-through to ensure that students are not concealing firearms or any other weapons. Subsequently, Dunbar High School also enforced a dress code in 1988. Today, offenders of these regulations are punished with suspension and negative marks upon permanent records. After these adjustments were made, the number of robberies at Dunbar had dropped significantly. Along with the Mumford and Dunbar high school, Tilton Elementary School in Detroit adopted an optional uniform after a rise in student robberies. 10 year old LaDonna White, a fifth-grader at Tilton Elementary responds, "The code shows that you come to school to work and not to play, and it saves your parents money. And people