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.
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