What I wore to Catholic high school was not a uniform so much as a look. Call it Cheap Yacht Club. The rule was slacks (never jeans), a decent shirt (no T's), a tie (clip-ons okay) and a navy blazer with a breast-pocket crest. Most of us boys -- and there were only boys, 1,200 of us -- had only the one blazer and rarely washed it, so I have vivid memories of jackets worthy of archaeological study for their Twinkie stains and nasal discharges, circa 1969.

If a uniform is meant to throw a student's mind off fashion and onto Latin, I suppose our uniforms did, although I never did master Latin. If a uniform is intended to help provide an identification beyond self, our uniforms did that as well, because fanaticism for our school was total. So, as the uniform fad seeps from private schools to public, I have little against making the young sartorially indistinguishable, not even worries about tampering with their right to personal expression.

But the gimmick is just that.

Uniforms are, in fact, a perfect reflection of our perpetual quest for "if only" grails, magic wands for what ails us. If only we allowed uniforms, we hear, public schools would improve. They would not, at least not commensurate with the hope invested in them and all the time, attention and newspaper ink devoted to them.

Fairfax County's School Board, which already allows individual schools to dabble in uniforms, is now looking for ways to widen their use, but Fairfax is only one of many systems smitten by the notion in the wake of nudges from a White House always willing to go where the nation seems headed.

A couple of years ago, 5,500 secondary school principals were asked about uniforms and 70 percent thought they'd reduce violence. The theory is that because kids fight over fashion accessories, nobody will have anything worth fighting over if everyone is dressed the same, and nobody will be teased about outfits.

Uniforms, too, are supposed to save parents the expense of accommodating styles and help forge an emotional bond with a team -- the school -- that raises self-esteem. Learning will bloom in an uplifting atmosphere. All of this stems from a conviction that the public schools are rife with problems, which they are, but to resort to uniforms is to tinker at the margins.

My high school was a great school. Something like 95 percent of my senior class went to college. But that success had nothing to do with our Yacht Club look. It had everything to do with our parents' making sure we hit the books every night because they were shelling out big bucks for our educations. And we weren't big-bucks families. We were Polish, Italian and Irish clans in the west suburbs of Chicago. School was a sacrifice, and the mere fact the families were willing to make it is why most of us succeeded.

No uniform can produce that kind of home commitment. Does anyone really believe that a kid willing to kill for an Eddie Bauer jacket will suddenly accept life's proper values, and geometry, if he and everyone else are dressed alike? That self-esteem and American history will course through his veins? The families that seek uniforms are precisely the ones whose kids don't need them to be civil and attentive. They've learned how to behave at home. The problem is the kids from the dysfunctional households. They need a lot more than a blazer could ever give.

If only.

If only we put prayer back in the public schools, we hear, society would straighten out. I'd like to see a study that links the absence of school-sponsored prayer with rates of divorce, abortion and juvenile delinquency. Anybody? Again, the people desirous of restoring the right to pray openly in classrooms are the ones whose children are least in need of help. Presumably, those kids are already praying and have a moral center. It's the kids who aren't praying and don't have a center who would be least touched by a few prayers at school.

If only we stopped giving condoms to kids and teaching them the facts of life, we hear, they wouldn't have sex. Condoms and sex education encourage them. Well, my high school went a step further. It banned girls. We still did nothing but think about sex.

If only we banned (name your class of gun) or restricted its use, we hear, the killing would stop or slow. My favorite of this ilk is Montgomery County's recent decision to ban gun shops near schools, as if anyone has ever marched into a gun shop, bought a weapon, marched out and started blazing at the kids at the school across the street. Homicides are down, yes, but gun control is hardly the reason.

I've long had a fantasy. Let's try all the "if only" solutions for a two-year period. Put prayer back in the schools, end sex ed, enact Draconian gun laws, turn off TVs and put every school kid in a uniform and see what happens.

My prediction? You wouldn't notice.

Many "if only" solutions are harmless and perhaps would do some good. The former superintendent of schools in Fairfax, Robert R. Spillane, once said he didn't think much of uniforms, but if people wanted them, fine.

But let's be honest. Our national negatives won't turn into positives if only we do this or that. Reducing drug use, broken homes, out-of-wedlock births, gangs, poor schools and all the rest takes big money and big effort, not little gestures.

To reach me on the Internet: twomeyswashpost.com

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