PHX Reporter

Corey DeAngelis, Senior Fellow at the American Federation for Children, recently tweeted in support of Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream's questioning of Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs over her opposition to Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) while having attended private school herself.

“Shannon Bream CALLS OUT Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs for opposing school choice for others after attending private school herself,” DeAngelis wrote in a Feb. 12 Twitter post.

On July 7, 2022, previous Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed into law the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program. According to the Arizona Department of Education, the ESA program expands educational opportunities for eligible students outside of the public school system; provides public funding that can be used for a wide variety of educational expenses; and pays for private school tuition, educational therapies, tutoring, and more.

According to the Arizona Department of Education, "46,787 Arizona Students benefit from an Empowerment Scholarship Account (as of 02/06/23)."

DeAngelis also tweeted on Feb. 12, "Thank you @ShannonBream for citing my article with @JasonBedrick on the governor’s claim that allowing families to take about half of what the government schools spend per student elsewhere would somehow 'bankrupt the state.'” 

On Jan. 15, 2023 DeAngelis co-authored, along with Jason Bedrick, a Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a Wall Street Journal op-ed regarding Gov. Hobbs' efforts to limit the state's ESA program.

In an interview on Fox News Sunday, host Shannon Bream asked Gov. Hobbs about her opposition to the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program, as she (Hobbs) had attended private school herself as a child.

When asked if all students should have a chance to go to private school like she did, Hobbs replied, “My parents made that choice. I begged them to send me to public school and we sacrificed a lot. There were times in my family that we were on food stamps. It was a choice that they made and they struggled to make that choice. What I want is for every public, every student, in the state of Arizona, no matter where they live, to have access to high quality public education.” 

Bream retorted, "But if their system is failing, if their public school is failing, 'no' to giving them a chance to go somewhere else like you did?”