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Use of the Means/Ends Test to Evaluate Public School Dress-Code Policies

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Educational Policy: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Policy and Practice

Published online on

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to explain how a means/ends test can be adapted for the school environment. Public school officials can use a means/ends test to document an analysis of whether dress-code policies will be effective in diminishing risks to the health, safety, or morality of the school population. Elements of policy evaluation--ends, means, and relations--and four main sources of information--authority, statistical or observational analysis, deduction, and sensitivity analysis--were used to illustrate how to analyze dress-code policies. Five components of good policy analysis--validity, usefulness, feasibility, originality, and importance--framed an evaluation of this approach.