$100,000 worth of new lab equipment means overcrowding!
In the October 3, 2000 Presidential debate, Gore said he'd received a letter from the father of a 15-year-old Sarasota High School student. "Her science class was supposed to be for 24 students," Gore said the man told him. "She is the 36th student in that classroom," Gore related, and he said the father sent him a picture of the girl in her class. "They can't squeeze another desk in for her, so she has to stand during class," Gore told the audience. Gore used the illustration to drive home the point that he wants the federal government "to make improvement of our school the number one priority."
However, Daniel Kennedy, Principal of Sarasota High School complained that Gore had exaggerated the overcrowding. "We have a brand-new campus. It's like a college. It's one of the top schools in the nation," he stated. The school is well under capacity and has plenty of space and desks. If Kailey didn't have a desk the first few days of school, he said, it was because $100,000 of new science equipment was sitting in boxes and taking up space on opening day, andthere were plenty of lab stools to sit on.
(Sources: New York Post 10/05/00 Washington Post, 10/05/00)
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