School board caught lying about uniform survey

If you've read my work for more than a week, you know one thing above all else: I (like a majority of Americans) am squarely opposed to making students in public schools wear uniforms. I attended 2 Catholic schools where the dress code more or less amounted to a uniform policy, and I can't even begin to tell you how out-of-control the discipline situation was.

I was against it when I was 13; I'm even more against it at 34. There's more than enough evidence that uniforms are detrimental to discipline, because it forces schools to shift attention away from more serious rulebreaking. I watched it happen right before my very eyes (as the band Chicago would say).

When you hear of a school sending a survey to parents about uniforms, be wary. If a parent or their child has fought the school before, they ain't likely to receive a survey. (I found this out after I circulated that petition.)

Now school trustees in South Bend, Indiana, have been caught with their polo shirts down around their ankles manipulating a uniform survey and lying about it.

At issue was whether uniforms would be mandated at Riley High School. The school board made uniforms obligatory at this campus, citing a survey that they claimed showed strong parental support for this fascism.

But not so fast! Numerous parents say they never got a survey. One estimated that 45% did not receive the questionnaire. Though the school board claims to have sent the survey out twice, one parent says he never received the survey even once.

Whoops. Gotcha, school bored!

I'm not surprised that school officials would lie about something like this. But that they'd make it so obvious is astonishing.

For years I've thought it odd that Indiana refers to its school systems as "corporations." Judging by the dishonesty and tyranny of school officials in South Bend, it looks like the term is fitting in this case.

(Source: http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080617/News01/806170318/0/BIZ)