You don't have to look very far to hear stories about what's wrong with our schools. From test scores, to school violence, to teen pregnancy figures, we are constantly bombarded with gloom and doom stories about the state of American education.

But there's a lot that's right in our schools today too. In many ways there has never been a time to be more optimistic about education. Information technology advances are opening up resources and opportunities to our schoolchildren that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago. Innovations like school choice, charter schools and school to work programs are getting parents more involved in education and applying the market forces of specialization and competition to education with dramatic results.

Another innovation gaining momentum across the country is the creation of school uniform policies. From California to Texas, from President Clinton to the American Federation of Teachers, a broad coalition of educators, parents, and elected officials are supporting school uniforms as one more tool to help build quality schools.

I believe this is an extraordinarily positive trend, and that is why I have introduced a bill to explicitly authorize school districts in Wisconsin to establish uniform policies. I have proposed this option for three basic reasons:

1. Safety

The sad fact is that in many of our schools students are already wearing uniforms. Unfortunately they are the uniforms of violence and hatred designed by gangs. When students can become targets because of the colors they are wearing it's time to give our schools a new weapon to fight back against these "crimes of fashion".

In Long Beach (Cal.) Unified Schools, school crime dropped 36% in the first year after a mandatory uniform policy was adopted. Fighting fell by 51%, weapons possession by 50%, assault and battery by 34%, vandalism by 18%. Similar results have been experienced in other districts that established uniform policies.

Our first responsibility must be to make sure our schools are safe learning environments for our children. In districts where gangs and "crimes of fashion" have compromised that safe environment, uniforms can be an extremely effective tool.

2. Attitude

Beyond the friends and fun that go along with a child's educational experience, school is serious business. School uniforms can help convey this message to students and reinforce the message that in a communal learning environment there are expectations for behavior, dress, and attitude that are different from those of a free time or recreational environment.

In addition, school uniforms encourage students to develop their individuality and creativity through the use of their minds, attitudes, actions, and abilities not merely through how they look. This in an especially important lesson in our image obsessed society, and can be an important weapon in combatting the self-destructive extremes to which today's young people go when they rely on personal appearance as the measuring stick for their individuality and self-worth.

3. Cost

A recent Knight-Ridder Newspapers story on school uniforms calculated the cost of one typical urban public school teenager's school outfit for one day at $140; and that didn't include the cost of her $150 down jacket. The point was clear, the cost of getting the "right look" for today's teen can be astronomical. Unfortunately, the cost in stigmatization and peer pressure for not having the right clothes ran be even higher.

Contrast these costs with the $25 average price of a Long Beach Unified School system uniform and you can clearly see how uniforms can relieve an enormous amount of financial pressure on families with school-age children. Many districts with uniform policies take the price advantage one step further by buying uniforms in bulk and then selling them at reduced cost to their students.

Our schools are at their best when they are providing safe environments for serious learning where students are judged on their achievements and their efforts not their economic status or fashion sense. School uniforms will not solve every challenge facing American education today. But by decreasing the distractions of violence, economic status, and fashion-driven peer pressure, uniforms can be a valuable tool for uniting parents, students, and communities around the important task of preparing our children for the future.

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