School Uniforms Until President Clinton called attention to the issue in his State of the Union address, mandatory public school uniform policies were sporadic local occurrences. Some school districts had been quietly experimenting with uniforms for years, but the issue caught President Clinton's attention after the Long Beach, California, school district released some numbers that suggested that after just a year, its policy on mandatory uniforms not only had it led to significant decreases in vandalism and fights, but it had also led to higher test scores. Now that the President's endorsement has elevated school uniforms to the realm of federal education policy, one question must be answered: Are uniforms a good idea? The most concise answer to this question is: no one knows. The superintendent of the Long Beach School District says the district's self-produced data showing a decrease in some forms of student misconduct is proof that uniforms work. But other steps to improve student behavior, such as increasing the number of teachers patrolling the hallways during lessons...