Rigging of uniform survey suspected

I could go on and on about the evils of school uniforms. Despite all the propagandizing by uniform supporters about uniforms supposedly eliminating economic distinctions, anyone who scrutinizes school uniforms quickly learns they were created largely to heighten economic differences, not eliminate them. School uniforms - which are much more likely to be found in dictatorships than in free societies - are the sumptuary laws of the modern world. And - at least in a country that has a First Amendment - uniforms in public schools are unconstitutional.

I've also noticed that bullying increases in schools with uniforms or rigid dress codes. This ought to tell you something right there.

In the Edgewood City Schools in Trenton, Ohio, a small group of right-wing activists is trying to make uniforms mandatory in all of the district's public schools. Yes, public. Public as a bird! (That's an inside joke.) Not like it hasn't happened already in other, larger American school systems - but every time someone doesn't fight it, it just encourages other schools to institute uniforms. It's become a slow, agonizing process of brainwashing the public into accepting it.

The school system claims it sent a survey to parents who had kids in the schools and that 53% were in favor of uniforms. Bull and shit. The school district where I grew up wasn't terribly different or even that far from the Edgewood City Schools, and I guarantee it wouldn't have been even close to 53%.

This underscores the fact that schools like to pull scams in which they claim much higher support for bad ideas than actually exists. This often entails not sending the surveys to folks who they think oppose the idea. I'm a firsthand witness to this. I once went to a Catholic school that claimed it sent surveys to all parents asking about the dress code. However, this is a lie, because my parents never received the survey. The school knew from the petition in 7th grade that I didn't like the dress code, so - just from the fact that my parents didn't stop me from circulating the petition - the school assumed the oldsters didn't like the dress code either. So my folks never received a survey. (If you don't think a private school can lie, you've never been to some of the ones I went to.)

I'm almost certain the Edgewood City Schools only sent its survey to folks who had already been relatively cooperative with the schools. Anyone who was labeled a "problem parent" (which means any parent who's ever had a legitimate grievance against the schools) probably got no survey. I guess the mailman didn't bring it to them (in the words of Billy Ray Cyrus).

Even if uniforms in the Edgewood City Schools are favored by 93% instead of 53%, constitutional rights are not negotiable. Inalienable rights cannot be repealed by the tyranny of a real or imagined majority. That's why America is supposed to be not a pure democracy but a democratic republic. The word 'republic' rolls off the tongue so easily that just the sound of it means you can exercise your natural rights and go as far in life as you please.

A real free republic is one free of public school uniforms. It's a shame so many of America's schools are run by people willing to fib and collude with the local activist-type wingnuts.

(Source: http://www.middletownjournal.com/hp/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/01/27/mj012708edgeuniformsa1.html)