(west of Long Beach)

’94-5 Long Beach, California

My work as expert witness does not always lead, as I have noted, to testimony in court.  Take a case in Long Beach, California, that was settled (muddled, actually) in behind-the-scenes negotiations.

My involvement began early in 1994, when I heard  from Carl Cohn, then the exceptionally capable superintendent of the Long Beach Unified School District.  Having audited one of my UCLA courses in educational administration, Cohn hoped I would help fight a legal challenge (by a handful of citizens and the American Civil Liberties Union) to a policy on student uniforms that seemed to work well.  After the Long Beach system made drastic efforts (including the introduction of uniforms) to inject a sense of serious purpose into public school classrooms, violence in that school system subsided dramatically.

When I agreed to assist, I was engaged as expert witness by Attorney Douglas Abendroth of O’Melveny & Myers, the school system’s law firm. I discussed arguments for uniforms with the firm’s lawyers, gathered evidence for my intended testimony in fifteen Long Beach public schools, and submitted a sworn statement.  Impressed with much that I saw, I helped the school system get an Annenberg grant.

Janet Reno, then U. S. attorney general, made a lavishly publicized visit to support the policy on uniforms. Some people think it helped that the California legislature, being the California legislature, authorized school districts to require student uniforms as long as uniforms were not really required.  

Because of references by the law firm and school system, I received inquiries from many parts of the nation.  One inquiry was from the lead defense attorney in a similar case in Phoenix-- Mary Ellen Simonson of Lewis & Roca there.  I gathered Phoenix evidence, filed a sworn statement, and showed up to testify, but the judge, startled by the chorus line of witnesses, waved several of us off.

I favor student uniforms, not only because they reinforce the pathetically minimal disciplinary authority public schools can muster these days, but because, among other things, they diminish visible differences between rich and poor youngsters; they keep adolescents from coming to class nearly nude, as otherwise they increasingly do; they inspire support by parents fed up with anything-goes policies in public schools, and they relieve pressure on moms and dads to finance clothing crazes. I believe student misbehavior, which uniforms help counteract, to be, by far, the biggest single cause of public school failure.

Unfortunately, the school-reform Sanhedrin seems unwilling to face the most serious problems in public schools, insisting instead that the solution lies in more money and dogma-riddled advice

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Copyright © 2004 Donald Erickson

Published with the assistance of IEW Systems