[Eva]

I can actually understand Malkin's distress over the way people dress. She has written about it before in relation to her daughter. When I was young we had strict dress codes in school and you still dressed up to go into the city. Our high school was particularly strict, the principal claimed that appearance had a direct effect on behavior and performance. He was right, our school was in the top ten in country in perfomance on the Iowa tests.

[LibertarianInExile]

Correlation is causation.

Therefore, since birds poop on statues all over the world, statues must cause birds to poop.

In fact, if there was a school with formal attire required, it would be the BEST school in the country.

/sarcasm

I'm sure the principal's strictness was useful, but self-selection probably played a role in the school's success. And I would hazard a guess that the principal knew all or most of the students. A study done a couple of years ago cross-checked all the variables that might affect education. The variable that made the most substantial difference? School size. Administrator-to-student-ratio, i.e., CHIEF principal to student ratio, is the biggest factor in student success, no matter what class size, teacher pay, or economic situation the school is in.

That's why Joe Clark kicked ass, and why California is a black hole educationally.

I wish I had the documentation on that survey. It was impressive--therefore, it was buried, and we continue to build monster schools nationwide.