Well, at some point a lack of adequate clothing becomes a distraction in the classroom. This is one small part of a larger issue. The power and authority in schools has been slowly and imperceptibly shifted from the teachers and administrators to the students. This is fairly new. You see it in the curriculum and pretty much everywhere in the schools. This week our kid's school has a "student-led" parent-teacher conference. The students are making most of the decisions themselves, and it shouldn't be a surprise that they often don't make good choices. This shift of power and responsibility is great for the teacher and staff; they claim to be empowering the students but really it's just much easier in many ways. Enforcing a dress code would be a lot of work!