The history of school uniforms in public schools in the United States begins with the small, disadvantaged school of Cherry Hill Elementary in Maryland and the domino effect that occurred soon after in the years that followed. The popularity of school uniforms can largely be attributed to the Long Beach, California, study and President Bill Clinton's speech on the topic. At first, school uniforms were only for private or Catholic schools, however the school uniform trend spread to other public schools to adopt the "preppy look" and be successful. This has now set a new standard for the US school system. A brief history of school uniforms will provide significant insight into the growing development that is transforming American schools. In the fall of 1987, Cherry Hill Elementary in Baltimore, Maryland was the first school to institute a uniform policy. Cherry Hill was predominantly an African American school with lower-middle class families. Since they were the first, they now call it the "School Uniform Project" as uniforms began to expand to schools across the nation. According to David Brunsma in The School Uniform Movement and What it Tells Us about American Education, this uniform policy was implemented after a Baltimore elementary school student was shot and wounded over “a pair of glasses ninety-five dollar sun” (p. 16). . This incident gave school officials even more impetus to implement the policy in order to restore cohesion and order in the school system. According to Baltimore's The Sun newspaper, one parent said, "What we're trying to do is unite this school as a family. Anyone who can't afford a uniform should come to us and we'll find a solution." With the support of school officials and... half the paper... percent, and Chicago with eighty percent. Overall across states 23% of public and private schools have adopted a uniform policy. And finally, the average annual sale of school uniforms amounts to $1,300,000,000. Mark Twain once said, “Clothes make the man.” This quote applies to the issue of school uniforms. Are they making American public school students more responsible and orderly? The statistics seem to say yes. There is no doubt that schools across the nation are seeing the improvements and are adopting the policy themselves. The benefits of school uniforms include decreased violence, helping students reduce peer pressure, increased concentration on schoolwork, and school officials' ability to recognize intruders. What a student is wearing may seem trivial, but it's worth investigating because it's changing America's public education system.