Henrico school’s new district-wide dress code
Dress code
When Henrico County's new districtwise dress code is completed, it will be posted online at www.henrico.k12.va.us/parents/ code-conduct.html . According to the new code, students will not be allowed to wear:hats or head coverings of any kind inside school buildings unless required for religious or medical reasons;
do-rags, bandanas, head scarves, hair picks, wave caps, large combs, brushes or rollers anywhere on school grounds during regular school hours;
dresses, skirts, shorts or athletic shorts higher than 4 inches above the knee;
torn, ripped or slashed clothing that reveals undergarments or parts of the body required to be covered, such as the midriff;
excessively tight or skimpy clothing, including bike shorts and plunging necklines;
tube tops, halter tops, halter-top dresses, strapless dresses, or tops or dresses with straps less than 2 inches wide at the shoulder;
swimwear or sleepwear;
sunglasses unless prescribed by a physician; and
coats inside the school building during the school day, with exceptions based on school design and storage for coats.
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mikeyt—please do go on and cite your source.
Also read this:
http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=gse_pubs
And this:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7191/full/453028a.html
And this:
http://www.scienceprogress.org/2007/12/pisa-test-scores-and-the-mathematics-of-inequality/
The world is a lot more complex than a rank-ordering of nations on average test score.
Finally, consider this: More than 500,000 international students are in the USA on student visas. International students account for about 3% of undergraduates and 12% of graduate students in our colleges and universities. Most all those students enroll in degree-granting programs with the intention of earning all their credits in the USA. Their goal is to attend the best universities in the world.
Meanwhile, only about 200,000 students from the USA study abroad each year. Most of those students spend no more than a semester abroad, with the goal of expanding their world view, language immersion, bolstering their credentials, and having a fun time. Their goal is not to attend the best schools in the world—they know when they return to their campuses in the USA that there is a huge gap between the typical overseas university with regard to the quality of the students and faculty and the university’s libraries and other facilities.
Yes, there are exceptions like Oxford, and going there specifically to attend classes at the School of Economics is laudable, but that is the exception, not the rule. And the superior status of higher education in the USA relative to the rest of the world is indisputable.
Arguing that the US education system is failing relative to other countries asks us to believe we are doing a bad job through grade 12, and then suddenly we lead the world in higher education. It also asks us to ignore the effect of poverty on test scores and assume that children in poverty in other “advanced” countries are attending school and sitting for those tests.
Now, if you have something to counter those assessments, and causes us to believe differently please, do go on. But if you’re going to cite a table in the USA TODAY, you’re just underlining my point that the world is more complex than a tag line in the media.
theobserver—if the thing that sets these other countries apart in terms of science and math test scores is values that parents place on education (which is a big component of the test score effects), then I think we both agree that blaming “the schools” is misguided.
as an employee of a county school i can tell you setting dress code policy is easy, getting parents/teens to follow it isn’t. getting boys to wear their pants at waist level has come down to pull them up or isd. watching boys struggle down the hallways with the waistband of their jeans down around their knees is funny, having to look at their undies is not. girls with large/small upper bodies in tube tops is ludicris for school. this is a place of learning, not socializing. date wear should not be allowed in school. but like i said setting policy is easy, enforcing it, well they will see how much fun that is…not.
I was going to post earlier but was waiting for the MikeyT post -
So, let’s get this straight - American kids are weak and lazy because they expect the gov’t to take care of them which isn’t going to stop with Obama in office so you beleive the government should enforce a dress code so kids in school stop relying on the government to take care of them?
wpanak… in no particular order, China, Japan, India, Sweden, Canada, Germany—shall I go on?
American kids are weak and lazy compared to children of only a generation ago. They think they are entitled to everything and when you ask them to put out some effort they complain. Schools are afraid to push them because the ACLU may accuse them of abuse. It’s the movement toward government taking care of us all that’s been going on for 20 years, and Lord knows it’s not about to stop with Obama calling the shots.
OK, which countries are we significantly behind?
I support dress codes. It’s a fact that our public schools are lagging—and it’s a FACT that we are significantly behind other countries with respect to science and math proficiency. It has nothing to do with political agendas—we are behind because generally we don’t value math and science as we should. Indeed, most of the best science and math students in America are Asian Americans. Sadly, we value basketball and sports more than academics, which is why we have huge numbers of fat, lazy, dumb people in America.
dee65—I agree on the point about school uniforms being a good way to lower costs for parents and also to reduce the distraction of “who is wearing what.“
However, your point that other countries (regardless of whether or not uniforms are worn) have better educational systems, has no basis in fact. Yes, there are a few countries that have higher test scores in certain subjects. Most of those comparative studies look at the average test scores for kids in the USA as compared to the average test scores for kids in the top schools in other countries. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison.
One can google for articles that support the view that there are serious problems with the US educational system. A lot of those articles are published by conservative think tanks that lobby for public funding of private schools.
Those authors have no qualms with mis-citing information to support their political agendas. The fact that they rely on pseudo-science to argue that the US eduational system, including science education, is sub-standard, is quite ironic.
i went to henrico county schools in the late 80s. we couldn’t wear shorts regardless of their length, couldn’t wear strapless dresses, mini-skirts, tank tops, flip flops, expose our midriffs or let our underwear show, and i assure you, NO ONE felt their rights were being violated or that their individuality was being stripped away from them, an no parent in their right mind would have fought for MY right to expose more skin (or underwear) at school - and nor should they.
these aren’t new rules, they are OLD rules that they went lax on and it just hasn’t been conducive to the school environment, so they are going back.
and when it comes to wearing jackets - no one is stopping students from keeping a nice, warm sweater in their lockers for when they get cold.
“I mean.. what is so stiffling about telling kids they can’t wear their PJ’s to school?“
I would say its an insult to their intelligence by not allowing them the ability to make the correct choice n their own… Of course you will always have a select group of girls that look like they plan on making the cornerstone of their career a “Craig’s List” ad, and boys that appear to lazy to pull their pants up over their lazy butt’s, but that’s all part of real life is it not? Isn’t that what school is supposed to be preparing them for in the first place.
For example, under this new policy a nice new clean and freshly ironed Chicago Blackhawks jersey could be interpreted as an “offensive graphic” because it depicts a charachterture of the head of a Native American Warrior, this is somewhat hypocritical coming from a County which has a charachterture of the head of an American Indian maiden as part of their own seal is it not? They ban the depiction of the confederate flag, yet they praise southern history in social studies. They ban headgear unless its of a religious connection, who comes up with the list of accepted religions? I would like to add “huffievaism” to the list, because I believe in being honest, being thoughtful, being respectful to others, and in the ability to wear a hat… sounds silly, but not as silly as assuming you can change the future of an entire school districts student by measuring the distance between their knees and the bottom of their shorts. What they should stick to measuring is the content between their ears, which correct me if I’m wrong, was the original intent of the education system…
Obviously some of these posters have not been in the public schools lately. I’m glad the HCPS implemented this dress code so that kids can have some kind of decorum and self-respect. Girls wearing plunging necklines and skirts so short that everyone can see their “undies” is to me a call to be called something unlady like and possible sexual advances. The boys wear their jeans so low that they have to walk around holding up their pants and showing their underwear. I personally don’t want my kids to go to school and be distracted by that. Freedom is earned its not a right and that’s where freedom is misinterpreted.
I for one would vote for uniforms. There are public school systems that use uniforms and have a low rate of violence in the schools. Uniforms are less costly than trying to dress your kids in “designer” clothes and sneakers. School is not a fashion runway and its not a soapbox to express yourselves. School is for learning and that’s it. You want to express yourself do it on your own time and not on my dime ( I pay taxes for education). This is what’s wrong with AMERICA , ENTITLEMENT and that’s why every country in the world looks at us and sees a bunch of bafoons. School uniforms are used in almost all countries in the world and their education is way superior to the U.S.
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