It is now common wisdom that our schools are not educating children sufficiently to compete in a world economy. There are many causes and just as many proposed remedies to address this increasingly serious problem. More funding, charter schools, separating boys and girls, testing students and grading teachers according to skills acquired by their students are among the many ideas. Most of these ideas share the disadvantage of requiring money, which is not readily available in today’s economy or of instituting major changes in the educational system.
One small and inexpensive change could help student achievement: school uniforms.