Charlotte hoping hip uniforms a hit at high schools

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Three of the area's lowest-performing high schools will require students to wear uniforms next year - though they apparently won't be the traditional ho-hum outfits many would expect.

Carl Brown, the co-founder of urban clothing designer FUBU, is helping teens at Garinger, West Charlotte and West Mecklenburg high schools develop the uniforms. The effort is designed to improve behavior and test scores by removing clothing as a distraction, school officials said.

Teens designing the clothes are mixing school colors and current fashions. The goal is to create uniforms considered cool while having each item cost less than $20.

Brown reviewed student plans for several items, including boys' cargo pants and girls' pleated skirts, at Garinger on Tuesday. He said the uniforms were as preppy as what's found in private schools, with a little more "pop."

"A lot of people are going to wear this outside of school," he said.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools proposed uniforms as part of a three-year push to double pass rates at the three schools.

Some analysts disagree on how much the uniforms will help. But system teachers and principals say uniforms help kids focus on learning. They say they increase school spirit, reduce peer pressure, deter the wearing of gang colors and eliminate the need to discipline kids dressed too provocatively.

"Research shows that more schools are more successful when they have gone to uniforms," Garinger assistant principal Barry Blair said. "Especially the inner-city schools."

The project has also allowed the students picked to design the clothes to prepare for interviews, work with professionals and learn about fashion and marketing, school officials said.

Almost one-fourth of the nation's public schools require uniforms, said David Brunsma, a University of Missouri professor. But they're mostly in elementary and middle schools, not high schools, where older students offer stiffer resistance.

The effectiveness of uniforms isn't clear, said Brunsma, who wrote the book, "The School Uniform Movement and What It Tells Us About American Education."

"It is assumed that school uniforms make students feel better about themselves and, in turn, make them more internally motivated to succeed," Brunsma said in an article on the university's Web site. "Several experimental factors can contribute to or contradict this outcome, including parental involvement, communication, student preparedness for school, positive approaches to learning, educational climates and safe schools."

About 30 percent of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg system's elementary schools now have uniforms, along with two middle schools and no high schools in the 140-school system.

Three years ago, CMS' Bishop Spaugh Community Academy became North Carolina's first public middle school with mandatory uniforms, Principal Jerry Brown said. That hasn't solved all the discipline problems, he said, but it has helped.

"Every time you eliminate some of those issues, you have more time to deal with the things that are really important," Brown said. "Like reading and writing."

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Information from: The Charlotte Observer, http://www.charlotte.com