Do Clothes Make the Student? "LAURIE COLES has always loved the nightly ritual she shares with her 7-year-old daughter, Madeline, of planning the next day's outfit. Madeline makes the choices, and her taste is bohemian-glam. One day during summer vacation, for instance, she wore a striped tank top with a knee-length pink petticoat layered under her jean skirt. Choosing her own outfits is important for ''her ability to be an individual,'' Ms. Coles said. ''It teaches her to embrace diversity on every level, even in dress.'' But Madeline's clothing options are about to get narrower. She goes to school in Bayonne, N.J., and that district of 9,000 students decided in June that its students in prekindergarten through eighth grade should come to school wearing uniforms, one of several districts in the region to do so recently. This year, Madeline, a second grader, and her schoolmates are required to wear shirts emblazoned with the school board's logo, along with any brand of khaki pants or shorts for boys, and khaki pants, shorts, skirts, skorts or capri pants for girls. The district plans to start enforcing the policy in a week, with punishments for students who do not comply. ''So much of this is subtle, but I don't want haves and have-nots,'' said the district's superintendent, Patricia L. McGeehan. ''I want kids to come to school and just be here for academic success, and I want teachers to be able to teach'' without dealing with the distractions that clothing can create, she said. ''Because we're here for teaching and learning.'' In Connecticut, Hartford instituted a uniforms policy, beginning this year, for its elementary and middle school students. On Long Island, Brentwood is in the second phase of a three-year plan to introduce what it calls a uniform code of dress, which permits students to wear only certain solid colors. In Westchester County, Yonkers students have had a similar dress code districtwide since 1999, but officials in White Plains have turned down occasional inquiries from parents about requiring uniforms. Timothy P. Connors, the schools superintendent, said, ''We don't feel it's going to have an impact on the school environment, as parents do.'' Nationwide, public school uniforms grew in popularity starting in the mid-1990's. President Bill Clinton gave uniforms a positive mention in his State of the Union address in 1996; that same year, the United States Department of Education stated that many parents, teachers and school officials saw uniforms as one way to make schools safer. In Waterbury, which in 1998 became the first district in Connecticut to require uniforms, the change has resulted in a number of improvements, the schools superintendent, David L. Snead, said. ''It's had a very, very, very positive impact on the behavior and the overall decorum of the student body,'' he said. Over all, however, research results have been mixed. David L. Brunsma, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Missouri-Columbia, has studied school-uniform policies for the past decade. He estimated that a quarter or more of the nation's public elementary schools, and 10 to 15 percent of middle and high schools, now require uniforms, rates that are perhaps double what they were in 2000. Yet Dr. Brunsma's research, which analyzed data from schools nationwide, has found uniforms ineffective. In a study published in 1998, he and a co-author, Kerry Ann Rockquemore, concluded that 10th-grade public school students who wore uniforms did no better than those who did not in attendance, behavior or drug use. SINCE then, Dr. Brunsma has published similar conclusions about elementary, middle and high school students; he said the findings even concluded that uniforms had ''a small yet statistically significant negative effect'' on first graders' reading scores. ''There's absolutely no conclusive evidence that school uniforms do what people purport that they will do,'' he said in a telephone interview. Recently, though, a smaller study of public high schools in Ohio by Virginia B. Draa, an assistant professor of human ecology at Youngstown State University, found that schools that required uniforms generally had lower suspension rates, higher graduation rates and fewer discipline issues. Dr. Draa said in a phone interview that uniforms can be beneficial by blurring class lines within a student body and decreasing peer pressure. They may also affect educators' perceptions, which could result in more consistent and higher expectations for students, she said. ''I think it would be better if all the schools in the U.S. required kids to wear uniforms, I really do,'' Dr. Draa said. Conflicting research results have not stopped schools from requiring uniforms. New London, Conn., an urban district of about 3,000 students, adopted uniforms for students in kindergarten through fifth grade last year and recently decided to expand them through eighth grade next year. Christopher P. Clouet, the superintendent, said the decision was made after much discussion among school leaders, community members and an ad hoc committee. Dr. Clouet said those groups had concluded that ''the wearing of uniforms contributes to school pride and has a positive impact on self-esteem, equalizes income disparities, is a financial savings, increases student attendance, improves behavior, reduces peer pressure and has a time and energy savings for parents.'' Plainfield, N.J., is seeking support from 90 percent of parents in each school before it proceeds with a districtwide uniforms policy, according to Louis M. Rivera, the district's director of community relations. The schools superintendent, Paula E. Howard, said the district turned to uniforms in response to an after-school fight last year that involved weapons concealed in loose clothing. In Bayonne, a coalition of parents mobilized against uniforms over the summer. The group, which Ms. Coles organized, has had more than 150 people sign up on its Web site. It is trying to raise money to pursue an injunction against the district, although as of Sept. 10, the legal fund had reached only one-third of its goal, Ms. Coles said. In the meantime, she said, she plans to challenge the rules on a smaller scale, with what she calls the ''wacky khaki'' she recently bought for Madeline, including a pair of corduroy gaucho-style pants studded with rhinestones. David J. Langrehr, a father of five school-age children in the Bayonne district, said last month at a meeting of the parents' group that while uniforms were a financial hardship for many in Bayonne, he would oppose them even if they were free. ''It comes down to choice,'' he said. ''You live in America, where you're supposed to have freedom of choice.'' By last Monday, the start of the first full week of school in Bayonne, Alexandria Lupo, 10, had worn the uniform to school for four days. ''They're not that bad,'' said Alexandria, whose mother, Nina Lupo, is the president of the parent-teacher council at Dr. Walter F. Robinson School. While she would prefer shirts in a lighter blue, as opposed to navy, Alexandria said the uniforms made life simpler. ''Yeah, it's so much easier in the morning,'' she said. ''When I get up, I already know what I'm wearing, and it's already hung on my door.''"