Uniforms In Public School Essays (2960 words) - Uniforms

Uniforms In Public School? Final Draft Quality education is critical to the future of America's children. However, we cannot educate our children in schools where weapons, gang violence, and drugs, threaten their safety. Many local school districts have made uniforms an important part of an overall program to improve school safety and discipline. Students resort to violence and theft simply to obtain designer clothes or name brand shoes. This instills a fear among the students and teachers. It is no secret that violent behavior has become a problem in public schools. For this reason more and more public schools are entertaining the idea of uniforms to get the minds of their students off of fashion and onto their education. Many parents and students support the uniform issue because they feel it makes all the students equal in the eyes of their peers and teachers. However, many parents feel that just like installing metal detectors, uniforms are a simplistic solution to a far greater problem. Some experts believe uniforms promise to cut down crime and reduce violence, but only if we take away that students individuality and freedom of expression. What does this promise? Uniforms have been used in an effort to try an reduce crime, and at the same time, remove peer pressure amongst students to try to ?fit in? so they can concentrate on their school work. President William Clinton agrees with this saying ?If uniforms can help deter school violence, promote discipline, and foster a better learning environment, then we should show strong support to the parents that try them?.(21) By mandating uniforms in public school, school officials hope to see a reduction in crime and violence. According to statistics, there are notable decreases in school violence and illegal offenses after the enactment of a school uniform or standardized dress code policy.(Lewis) Can uniforms really help in deterring violence and crime? Many parents and teachers say yes. Supporters of uniforms say social and economic classes would no longer be revealed by students' clothing and the school system will have more of a sense of community.(Nittel) Providing that a child's clothes does make a difference in school violence, then uniforms are exactly what our children need. Some parents feel uniforms will put the students' emphasis on schoolwork instead of dressing ?cool?, and they will help to lower school violence. Almost five years ago, the Long Beach School District made headlines when it became the first school district in the country to make uniforms mandatory for its elementary and middle school students. According to Phoenix school officials in Long Beach, California, attendance and test scores improved, incidents of students fighting decreased by 50%, student crimes decreased by 36% and student suspensions decreased by 32% after they enacted a uniform policy.(Will) Also other there were other steps to improve student behavior. Increasing the number of teachers patrolling the hallways during class changes, were also taken by the district around the same time the uniform policy was introduced. Dress codes were initiated in private schools as a standard. As violence, competition between students, and distractions from the educational system increased in public schools, administrators began to consider uniforms as a solution to the problem. In Baltimore, Maryland, school administrators found a 44% drop in assault and battery charges, a 50% reduction in assault with a deadly weapon, a 41% cut in occurrences of fighting and a 74% drop in sexual offenses. They also found drug abuse to be down by 89% and vandalism had dropped by 8%.(Stacey) These results and others caused many school districts to consider uniforms for their own schools. Uniforms seem to give students a sense of responsibility. It says that clothing is not that important. With this realization the students began to forget about their clothes and refocused their attention on education. Consequently their test scores and attitudes improved. One teacher stated that ? I have never seen so many children change their overall attitude in the classroom in just a matter of a few weeks.? Studies show school uniforms are more successful in elementary schools, where students are not so intent on their individuality.(Stover) And, experts recommend placing students in uniforms at a young age so they become accustomed to a program. This allows there to be no focus on material items and the children's focus remains on education from the start. Stover(1990) states that most supporters of uniforms agree the program will not succeed unless school officials gain the support of a large majority of parents from the beginning.

How Delegates to Presidential Conventions Are Selected

How Delegates to Presidential Conventions Are Selected In the summer of every presidential election year, political parties in the United States typically conduct national conventions to choose their presidential candidates. At the conventions, the presidential candidates are selected by groups of delegates from each state. After a series of speeches and demonstrations in support of each candidate, the delegates begin to vote, state-by-state, for the candidate of their choice. The first candidate to receive a preset majority number of delegate votes becomes the partys presidential candidate. The candidate selected to run for president then selects a vice presidential candidate. Delegates to the national conventions are selected at the state level, according to rules and formulas determined by each political partys state committee. While these rules and formulas can change from state-to-state and from year-to-year, there remain two methods by which the states choose their delegates to the national conventions: the caucus and the primary. The Primary In states holding them, presidential primary elections are open to all registered voters. Just like in general elections, voting is done through a secret ballot. Voters may choose from among all registered candidates and write-ins are counted. There are two types of primaries, closed and open. In a closed primary, voters may vote only in the primary of the political party in which they registered. For example, a voter who registered as a Republican can only vote in the Republican primary. In an open primary, registered voters can vote in the primary of either party, but are allowed to vote in only one primary. Most states hold closed primaries. Primary elections also vary in what names appear on their ballots. Most states hold presidential preference primaries, in which the actual presidential candidates names appear on the ballot. In other states, only the names of convention delegates appear on the ballot. Delegates may state their support for a candidate or declare themselves to be uncommitted. In some states, delegates are bound, or pledged to vote for the primary winner in voting at the national convention. In other states, some or all delegates are unpledged, and free to vote for any candidate they wish at the convention. The Caucus Caucuses are simply meetings, open to all registered voters of the party, at which delegates to the partys national convention are selected. When the caucus begins, the voters in attendance divide themselves into groups according to the candidate they support. The undecided voters congregate into their own group and prepare to be courted by supporters of other candidates. Voters in each group are then invited to give speeches supporting their candidate and trying to persuade others to join their group. At the end of the caucus, party organizers count the voters in each candidates group and calculate how many delegates to the county convention each candidate has won. As in the primaries, the caucus process can produce both pledged and unpledged convention delegates, depending on the party rules of the various states. How Delegates are Awarded The Democratic and Republican parties use different methods for determining how many delegates are awarded to, or pledged to vote for the various candidates at their national conventions. Democrats use a proportional method. Each candidate is awarded a number of delegates in proportion to their support in the state caucuses or the number of primary votes they won. For example, consider a state with 20 delegates at a democratic convention with three candidates. If candidate A received 70% of all caucus and primary votes, candidate B 20% and candidate C 10%, candidate A would get 14 delegates, candidate B would get 4 delegates and candidate C would get two delegates. In the Republican Party, each state chooses either the proportional method or a winner-take-all method of awarding delegates. Under the winner-take-all method, the candidate getting the most votes from a states caucus or primary gets all of that states delegates at the national convention. Key Point: The above are general rules. Primary and caucus rules and methods of convention delegate allocation differ from state-to-state and can be changed by party leadership. To find out the latest information, contact your states Board of Elections. 2020 National Nominating Conventions: Dates and Sites The 2020 Democratic National Convention will be held from July 13th to 16th, 2020, at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Since by tradition, the convention of the party currently holding the White House is held after that of the opposing party, the 2020 Republican National Convention will be held on August 24th to 27th, 2020, at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.