CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Donald Trump looked back to the Baby Boomer generation and earlier during a Thursday afternoon speech at a Cleveland charter school, where he argued for an expansion of "school choice."
"If we can put a man on the moon, dig out the Panama Canal and win two World Wars, I have no doubt that we can provide school choice to every disadvantaged child in the country," Trump said during his 40-minute speech, which focused on education issues.
Trump spoke to a small, invitation-only crowd in the cafeteria of the Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy, run by Accel Schools, an Arizona-based, for-profit operator of charter schools. He unveiled an education plan that included expanding merit pay, and creating a program to award $20 billion in grants for impoverished children to pursue "school choice" -- a catch-all phrase that refers to anything but traditional, government-run schools.
The appearance at the school, in the heavily African-American Woodland Hills neighborhood, was part of Trump's ongoing effort to smooth over his "politically incorrect" political persona that many black voters and others have perceived as racist.
Trump, speaking quietly and reading from a teleprompter, spoke of his intention to expand opportunities for inner-city residents and others.
"My job will be to ensure that any American, African-American, Hispanic, anyone, will be placed on the ladder to success," Trump said. "I define that as a great education and a great job."
He added: "You cannot have prosperity without safety. This is the new civil rights agenda of our time."
Charter debate ongoing
Trump's speech touched a nerve of the charter-school debate -- opponents argue that diverting public money toward charter schools does so at the expense of traditional ones, which are more accountable. Last year, lawmakers passed a series of reforms meant to improve oversight of charter schools, some of which have been particularly troubled in Ohio.
And, a state government effort is ongoing to audit the $108 million in state funding sent to ECOT, the largest online school in the state, to see whether the school inflated the hours students actually spent taking online courses.
"In Ohio, we've seen more than enough of the 'solutions' Donald Trump is selling, but we're not buying," Melissa Cropper, president of the Ohio Teachers Federation, said in a statement. "Unregulated, unaccountable for-profit charter schools--like the one Trump is visiting today--have destabilized our public districts, defrauded taxpayers, and left our kids and educators worse off, not better."
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's published education plan includes increasing federal funding to modernize school buildings, improving teacher training and pay and working to end the "school to prison pipeline" by reforming laws and disciplinary policies and putting money toward behavioral interventions. Clinton has made supportive statements about charter schools in general, although she has criticized those operated by for-profit companies like the one that owns the Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy.
In a statement distributed by the Clinton campaign, Clinton Senior Policy Adviser Maya Harris said: "It's no surprise that Donald Trump--whose only experience when it comes to education is his fraudulent 'Trump University'--offered education policies that would prove disastrous for our public schools, our educators, and most importantly, our kids. Let's be clear: Trump's proposal to apparently gut nearly 30 percent of the federal education budget and turn it into private school vouchers would decimate public schools across America and deprive our most vulnerable students of the education they deserve."
Trump insists he opposed Iraq war from the start
Trump dedicated much of the beginning of his speech to doubling down on his frequent claim, which independent fact-checkers have found to be false, that he opposed the 2003 war in Iraq from the very beginning. He acknowledged telling Howard Stern in September 2002, the month before Congress voted to authorize the invasion, that he "guessed" he was in favor of invading Iraq.
But he also cited instances in 2004 where he was quoted opposing the war, claiming that his subsequent statements "superseded" his earlier ones.
Trump summed up his claims about the Iraq War: "Had I been in Congress at the time, I would have cast a vote in opposition."
Trump also declared that had he would have been "tougher on terrorism."
"Osama bin Laden would have been "caught a long time ago before he was ultimately caught... prior to the demolition of the World Trade Center," Trump said.
Trump meets with students, school officials
Before Trump's speech, he met for 20 minutes for a "roundtable" discussion in one of the school's classrooms with a group of students, charter-school officials and others. Seated to Trump's right was Debroah Mays, the head of the school. To his left was Ron Packard, the CEO of ACCEL schools.
Packard, a prominent figure in the charter-schools market, in 2015 bought the Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy and other schools as part of an expansion into the Ohio education marketplace, The Plain Dealer has reported.
Trump asked the students what they thought of how the school compared to a traditional public school. He also asked school officials and State Rep. Andrew Brenner, the Republican chair of the Ohio house's education committee, about charter-school funding in Ohio.
Among the school officials who participated was Chris Delk, a school board member who is a Cleveland police detective. Delk said he is passionate about the charter-school movement because it provides an opportunity for him to show children that "not all police are bad."
Trump responded by praising Cleveland police for their performance during the Republican National Convention.
"Say hello to your commissioner... your chief. They were absolutely fantastic. You know, for weeks they were ohh, there's going to be riots," said Trump, who himself in March predicted "riots" if he were to have been blocked from receiving the nomination. "But they kept it down. It was so an incredible job. Really professional. So thank you."
In an interview, Mays said she didn't want to speculate why her school was chosen. But she said while Trump's visit complicated the school day, it provided the school an opportunity to talk to him about charter-school funding issues.
"For the children who were exposed to [the visit], I definitely think it was a wonderful educational experience. You turn on the news, and you see politics every day. But for our [students] who were exposed to it, this was a chance to see it up close and personal," she said.
Later Thursday, Trump headed to a pair of private fundraisers -- one at the TownHall restaurant in the Ohio City neighborhood organized by Cuyahoga County Republican Party Chairman Rob Frost and Tony George, a politically active local businessman, and another at the home of Ed Crawford, an industrialist who is the state finance chair for Trump's presidential campaign.
Trump was last in Cleveland on Monday, when he participated in a "roundtable discussion" with a few organized-labor figures before dropping by the Canfield Fair in Mahoning County.