FORT MYERS, Fla. — First Daughter Ivanka Trump spoke to several hundred people at Top Rocker Field in Fort Myers Wednesday. Voters shared with Fox 4 what brought them out.
“We love Trump. The platinum plan for black America. Trump Train!” said voter Marcia McManus.
She also acknowledged veterans. Bill Eggers says it wasn’t the first time he got a shout out from the first family.
President Donald Trump recognized his son Daniel Eggers during his Memorial Day speech in Baltimore this year.
“Then I hear Green Beret Captain Daniel Eggers, and I damn near fell off my chair. That’s how surprised I was,” said Eggers.
Ivanka also brought attention to Denisha Merriweather. The poster child for the administration’s push for school choice.
“I became the first in my family to graduate from high school. I went on to receive my undergrad and master’s degree. All of that was because I received a tax-credit scholarship to go to a private school,” said Merriweather.
But Dr. Jennifer Sughrue, Professor of Educational Leadership at Florida Gulf Coast University says although scholarships send students to private schools, school choice actually takes money away from neighborhood schools.
“When a student leaves their neighborhood school, and goes into a school of choice, that money - that per pupil funding, or a large portion of it follows that student into the school in which that student matriculates,” she said.
Merriweather agrees there should be more funding for neighborhood schools.
“Those are the failings of our public education system. Not to say that the students going to public schools don’t matter, because they do,” she said.
Ivanka Trump also talked about her dad’s mission to secure borders and promised a COVID-19 vaccine before 2020 ends.
