President Donald Trump to visit private Pine Hills school to push for school choice

The president will be in Orlando on Friday to speak to children at a private Catholic school in Pine Hills.

President Donald Trump’s visit is part of a larger education push.

St. Andrews is one of the schools that could see significant changes if the president and Republicans are successful in their education funding plans.

“I am calling upon members of both parties to pass an education bill that funds school choice for disadvantaged youth, including millions of African-American and Latino children,” Trump said in Tuesday night in his address to Congress. “These families should be free to choose the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school that is right for them.”

WATCH: President Trump's speech Part 1 | Part 2

St. Andrews was built in the 1960s to serve the children of Pine Hills.

Florida’s tax credit scholarship program, Step Up for Students, means that many of the children in the area who cannot afford a private school can attend.

Trump signaled that he would like to see similar programs expanded, with tax dollars following the student even to private schools.

Critics say such programs gut public schools, while supporters argue that they give parents more options.

“People need to be crystal clear about something. School choice is a euphemism for transferring public tax dollars into private hands,” said education advocate Kathleen Oropeza of Fund Education Now.

She said diverting money away from public school harms those schools and the children who get left behind are those who don’t have the means to travel to another school, can’t pay the difference in price for a private school or are turned away from a charter school.

“What we are really talking about is a wholesale resegregation of schools as well,” said Oropeza. “It’s not just along racial lines but along poverty lines.”

But supporters like David Velazquez of the Conservative Libre Initiative said parents need more choices, and should be able to move a child out of a failing school.

“Those students don’t get the same opportunity, so it would be better for parents to say, ‘My kid needs to go to this school,’” said Velazquez.

He believes that competition will force schools to raise the bar.

“There will be more opportunity that will come, and that’s very promising,” Velazquez said.

Critics of Trump’s visit on Friday said he should also be stopping by a public school.

Cox Media Group