My children wear uniforms to school. They are not always happy but I think it is less stressful then competing with other children on the type and name brand of clothes they wear. I also think it prepares them for the furture work place environment. When you go to work you are expected to wear proper attire for the job you are performing. I think school uniforms assist students in understanding there is a time and place for everything.

Uniforms for public school students signal to the outside world that they attend a school with a large low-income population. My friends whose children attend public school in affluent Manhattan neighborhoods don't seem to have uniforms whereas we who live in a "diverse" outer-borough neighborhood do. I don't believe it erases the class distinctions, one can still tell who has money and who doesn't.

I think that the idea behind school uniforms is good so long as the policy is enforced. Last year at my daughter's school the policy was initially enforced and gradually became lax as the school year progressed. Another thing I noticed is that in public school you are free to choose your uniform so long as it falls within the color scheme, thus allowing for a tremendous amount of variation (and thus class distinction can be noticed). With charter schools, Success Academy for example, they bring in a company and you just fit the child, making the uniforms absolutely identical.

Since it saves us precious time in the AM - I am more than happy to spend the $200 on the uniform. Since then we spent another $30-$40 on some seamless socks. We put her after-school clothes in the backpack - it gives her something to pick out and look forward to wearing later.

Since they are official uniforms we do not have to worry about her trying to find "ways to signal their individuality". Unless this strengthens her desire to start wearing nail polish, hair clips, pony tail's, etc.

My twins are just about to start pre-k at P.S. 11 in Fort Greene/Clinton Hill, where I'm told the uniform policy is pretty flexible: just white shirts and blue or red bottoms, with anything goes on Fridays. This morning, my daughter -- who is super picky -- randomly put on a white T and red shorts, and I told her it would be perfect for next week, when school begins. She said she thinks we should take everything that's not the right colors out of their drawers and into boxes. I tried to explain that we'd still have weekends....

We lived in Long Beach, Calif., where the school uniform movement pretty much started, as uniforms were introduced. A lot of signals of class get stripped away when everyone wears the same thing - at least that was the theory. The reality was that almost instantly, kids found ways to signal their individuality: a boy's sneakers, a girl's bracelet.

The experience left me feeling that, as with many things, the outward expressions are important but insufficient if the goal is cultural change.

Uniforms do not prepare children for the workplace, where almost everyone except, say, the UPS drivers must choose appropriate attire within acceptable limits without having been issued a uniform.
Uniforms are just another way of molding our children's behavior as if they were monkeys or prisoners without giving them practice in how to think for themselves.