American schools seem to be on the brink of a new fashion craze. The trendsetters are not movie stars or grunge rockers. They are school administrators, teachers, and the president of the United States, who, in his 1996 State of the Union message, declared that "if it means that teenagers will stop killing each other over designer jackets, then our public schools should be able to require their students to wear school uniforms."

This endorsement was followed by the distribution of a U.S. Department of Education Manual on School Uniforms to every school district in the country, a presidential visit to the Long Beach (California) School District that pioneered public school uniform programs, and a presidential radio address touting "school uniforms [as] one step that may be able to help break [the] cycle of violence, truancy, and disorder...."

Increasing numbers of American public schools are requiring, or promoting, uniforms. Many resemble the ensembles worn by parochial and private school students. Others are less formal combinations of jeans and T-shirts imprinted with the school insignia. The educational press and on-line discussion groups for teachers and administrators are filled with testimonials to the impact of uniforms. Carl Cohn, superintendent of the Long Beach Unified School District, claims that requiring uniforms in the elementary and middle school has led to results that he would not have believed possible.