Have you heard the charge that Arizona families are using Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA) for babysitting? Or that ESA families are sitting on millions of dollars that they’re using for expensive, overseas vacations? Or that the ESAs only benefit wealthy families who live in high-performing school districts?
These claims range from “lacking key context” to “lacking any evidence whatsoever.” The main source of these and other horror stories that school-choice opponents tell is reliably left-leaning Arizona media outlets such as Channel 12 and the Arizona Republic.
It’s no surprise. Reporters at these outlets, such as Craig Harris, have a history of inaccurate agenda-driven “reporting” on Arizona’s school choice policies. Recent articles and “news” segments from these and other outlets are in keeping with this history.
Award-Winning Errors
In 2018, the Republic released a series criticizing Arizona’s charter schools. The series won the paper a Polk Award. The only problem is that it was riddled with errors.
For example, the Republic claimed that Arizona’s traditional district schools outperformed the state’s charter schools as measured by the state’s A-F school grading system and graduation rates. Both these claims were demonstrably false, but the Republic never ran a correction.
Matthew Beienburg of the Goldwater Institute detailed at length the numerous errors the Republic made to reach those incorrect conclusions, describing the story as “astonishingly deceptive.” For example, they counted one charter school as having a graduation rate of 0% when the school only offered instruction through 9th grade. Two more schools that supposedly had 0% graduation rates had closed years earlier. Another charter school with a low graduation rate was an alternative school that operated under the Yuma County Juvenile Justice Center—hardly an apples-to-apples comparison for typical district schools.
In 2019, the Republic released an above-the-fold, front-page story claiming that 100 of Arizona’s then 544 charter schools were in imminent danger of closure. The report said it was a “near certainty” that at least 50 would close “in the near future.” You’d think such a sensational claim would warrant a healthy dose of skepticism, but the Republic was more than happy to breathlessly repeat the claims nearly unchallenged.
Six years later, 580 charters operate in the state, defying predictions of a mass extinction. In fact, on the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, Arizona’s charter school students scored over two grade levels higher than district students on 8th grade mathematics and by almost two grade levels on 8th grade reading. The state’s charter school students also scored higher than any other statewide average on both subjects.
You won’t see those facts reported by Arizona’s legacy media.
Journalism’s Credibility Crisis
For careful journalists concerned with their personal credibility and the declining credibility of their profession with the American public, these embarrassing errors might have sparked some self-reflection upon their sources and practices. For the Republic, it was merely a warmup for more of the same.
Author Amanda Ripley, interviewed for a book she wrote on deep problems of journalism, noted the “strange and insular world of journalism prizes,” which encourage simplistic “us versus them” stories. “This adversarial model that we’ve got going in education, journalism, and politics no longer serves us. There’s a good guy and a bad guy and everything’s super clear, it just breaks down. And we keep awarding prizes in that model. But 99 percent of stories are not that clear-cut,” Ripley noted.
In other words, as if journalism did not have enough problems amid a pronounced decline in public confidence, journalism awards—like the Polk Award given to the Republic team for their inaccurate and ideological anti-charter school series—encourage advocacy-style journalism.
There Is No Evidence Families Used ESAs for Babysitting
Channel 12’s recent anti-choice crusade involves a series of clumsy attacks on Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program.
One myth Channel 12 has been attempting to spread is the notion that participants in the ESA program are using their accounts to pay for “babysitting.” In fairness, this claim is based upon a since-corrected misstatement by a representative of the Arizona Treasurer’s Office. The ESA program, however, has a list of allowable uses for accounts, and babysitting is not now—nor has it ever been—an allowable use.
Despite the correction by the Treasurer’s Office, some in the media are still spreading the claim. Asked about this on KTAR days after the correction, reporter Craig Harris of Channel 12 (who authored or co-authored the erroneous Republic articles described above) artfully claimed that the Arizona Department of Education’s use of risk-based auditing on low-dollar purchases means that we really don’t know whether parents are using ESA accounts for babysitting or not.
We can likewise state that we really don’t know whether any random person has cheated on his or her federal income taxes. After all, the IRS does not audit every single income tax return—instead they use a technique known as “risk-based auditing” to detect and deter fraud. This is the same technique that Arizona law established to ensure accountability in the ESA program, as recommended by the Arizona Auditor General, and it is used by numerous government agencies.
Journalists have no evidence that anyone has ever used the ESA program for babysitting. But if it happened and they were caught, just like the hypothetical tax cheat, the hypothetical ESA offender would face fines or even jail time. The combination of risk-based auditing and consequences for fraud is why the United States has one of the highest tax compliance rates in the world.
ESA Parents Are Not Really “Subsidizing Vacations”
Channel 12 is likewise playing fast-and-loose with the facts when they claim that Arizona parents are “using education tax dollars to subsidize their vacations.” That phrasing gives the impression that ESA funds are being used for flights, food, or hotel stays—none of which are allowable expenses under the ESA statute.
The reality is that families are using ESA funds to buy tickets to museums, zoos, aquariums, and other educational venues that are—appropriately—allowable expenses under the ESA statute, and which public schools regularly purchase as well.
ESAs Expand Educational Opportunity
Stories from the same outlets also claim the ESA is “hurting high-performing public districts.” Even setting aside that such statements treat children as mere funding units for district schools, reporters’ use of the term “high-performing” is out of step with what most parents think it should mean.
The article notes that the “top five school districts losing students who left for [ESAs] are: Mesa, Deer Valley, Chandler, Peoria and Scottsdale,” and that all these districts received an “A” letter grade from the state except for Mesa, which received a “B.”
But are Arizona’s school letter grades a reliable indicator of quality? Absolutely not.
In the 2023-24 academic year, Arizona awarded 677 schools “A” grades, while only four schools “F” grades—yet only a third of Arizona students passed the state math exam.
By contrast, GreatSchools is a much harsher grader than state bureaucrats. In Maricopa County, the state awarded 325 “A” grades and only two “F” grades, while GreatSchools gave 49 “A” ratings and 111 “F” ratings. For obvious reasons, parents trust GreatSchools more than they trust state bureaucrats.
In the five districts that parents are fleeing most for ESAs, the percentage of students scoring “proficient” or higher on the state math test ranges from 30% in Mesa to 58% in Chandler. Fewer than half of students scored proficient in Deer Valley and Peoria as well.
Reporters who are hostile to parental choice in education might call that “high performing,” but most parents don’t.
Arizona families deserve accurate reporting on education policy, not sensationalized narratives built on flimsy foundations. Arizona media’s pattern of misrepresenting school choice programs—from the error-ridden charter school series to unfounded attacks on ESAs—undermines the public’s understanding of legitimate educational options.
While parents increasingly turn to alternatives like ESAs and charter schools that demonstrably outperform traditional districts, journalists have a responsibility to report these developments fairly, not perpetuate myths that serve no one except those invested in maintaining the status quo. Arizona’s children benefit when families have genuine choice in education, and they deserve journalism that illuminates rather than obscures the facts about their options.
Matthew Ladner is a Senior Advisor for education policy implementation and Jason Bedrick is a Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) marks the most transformative overhaul of federal tax policy since the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).
The OBBBA locks in the TCJA’s individual tax provisions, avoiding a tax increase for approximately 62% of tax filers in 2026, according to the Tax Foundation.
The group’s recent analysis also shows that the law will reduce federal taxes for individual taxpayers in every state, with an average national tax cut of $3,752 per taxpayer in 2026.
The economic impact is equally as big, with 938,000 new full-time equivalent jobs created over the long term, including 132,000 in California, 81,000 in Texas, and down to 1,800 in Vermont.
In Arizona, the Tax Foundation says that the OBBBA will deliver an average tax cut of $3,521 per taxpayer in 2026, providing relief to families and individuals across the state.
Maricopa County will see an average tax cut of $4,049 per taxpayer in 2026, driven by key provisions like:
Income Tax Rate Cuts and Bracket Changes: $1,613 in savings per taxpayer.
Standard Deduction Expansion: $821 in savings
Child Tax Credit Expansion: $630 in savings
Tip and Overtime Deductions: $50 and $229 in savings
Business Provisions: $1,321 in savings
Other counties in the state will see major tax cuts in 2026, including Coconino County, with $3,096, Yavapai County, with $3,066, Greenlee County, with $3,011, Pima County, with $2,781, and Pinal County, with $2,553.
The Tax Foundation also projects that Arizona will gain approximately 18,014 full-time equivalent jobs in the long run, boosting local economies and supporting communities across the state.
OBBBA’s long-term outlook remains strong, with average tax cuts projected to dip to $2,505 in 2030 due to the expiration of temporary provisions like the tip and overtime deductions, before rising to $3,301 by 2035 as inflation enhances the value of permanent cuts.
Arizona’s business-friendly provisions, such as permanent 100% bonus depreciation and research and development (R&D) expense, will continue to drive investment and job creation.
Ethan Faverino is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
Pittsburgh-based autonomous trucking company Aurora Innovation Inc. has officially opened a terminal in Phoenix, marking a significant step in the company’s efforts to expand its commercial footprint beyond Texas.
The newly operational site supports driverless freight runs, including nighttime operations, and is part of Aurora’s strategy to scale its autonomous vehicle network across the southwestern United States. The company confirmed that the Phoenix terminal opened in June and is already servicing commercial routes for two of its key partners: Hirschbach Motor Lines and Werner Enterprises.
This development follows Aurora’s earlier announcement, reported last fall, that it would extend its existing autonomous freight corridor — which previously connected Fort Worth and El Paso — to include Phoenix. The move marks Aurora’s first expansion outside of Texas and signals growing confidence in its driverless trucking technology.
While Aurora declined to provide the terminal’s exact location, a company spokesperson said it is situated a few miles from the Loop 202 and Interstate 10 interchange in Phoenix — a strategic logistics hub for commercial transport. Details on staffing at the terminal, including how many employees are currently working on site or whether they are permanently based in Arizona, were not disclosed.
The expansion comes as Aurora and its competitors in the self-driving freight sector race to commercialize their technology at scale. With rising demand for long-haul freight solutions and persistent driver shortages, autonomous trucking is increasingly being positioned as a critical innovation in the logistics industry.
Aurora has not yet announced additional expansion locations, but its continued growth outside of Texas suggests a broader national rollout may be on the horizon.
Jonathan Eberle is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
The case of a Chinese illegal-immigrant-turned-Peoria restaurateur, Lai Kuen “Kelly” Yu, is raising questions among the Republican Party grassroots.
Yu was arrested on May 28th by ICE agents, and her pending deportation back to China has caused what many see as an inexplicable alignment of Democrat politicians, one Republican leader, and the avowedly anti-Trump group ‘Northwest Valley Indivisible.’
Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, laid out plainly in a written statement to AZCentral that Yu, who was reportedly trafficked into the U.S. illegally in 2004, has exhausted all legal avenues to remain in the country. “Lai Kuen Yu, an illegal alien from Hong Kong, was arrested by U.S. Border Patrol in Arizona on February 4, 2004, and two days later was released into the country. She exhausted all her due process and appeals. She has no legal pathways to remain in the U.S.”
Lisa Everett, Republican chair of Legislative District 29, toldThe Center Square in an interview this week contrary to court records, “Kelly is a woman who came to the United States when she was 18 years old, 21 years old at the time. She was pregnant, fled China due to the one-child policy, and when she arrived, she immediately applied for asylum.”
“She sponsors the high school softball team. She helps with fundraisers for the fire and police department. She has no criminal record, and she does in fact pay her taxes, the business as well as her personal because there are forms you can use to do that,” claimed Everett. “She was scooped up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while she was at an immigration meeting that she had to go to because she is married now, and she’s trying to use being married to an American to become a citizen.”
Everett has teamed up with Brent Peak, co-chair of radical leftist activist group Northwest Valley Indivisible, which has rallied with the socialist Working Families Party and aggressively targeted the GOP’s top priority ‘One Big Beautiful Bill,’ President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, and his supporters.
As recently as April, Everett, her LD29 team, and supporters from Legislative District 28 were out counterprotesting against Indivisible’s anti-Trump demonstrations on an almost daily basis for nearly two weeks.
The stunning about-face has made significant waves among West Valley Republicans. One commenter on a post by the Maricopa County Republican Committee asked, “Why is she still in position of the Republican chair?”
Another commenter observed, “We’re seeing a growing problem of white progressive women rebranding themselves as ‘conservatives’ just long enough to slide onto Republican tickets. They talk a good game on vague GOP talking points, but when it comes to the hard issues — border security, law and order, the culture war — they fold right back into Democrat-lite positions. This is how the Uniparty works: infiltrate, dilute, and derail. If we don’t vet candidates for values instead of just labels, we’ll keep getting wolves in MAGA clothing.”
Alongside Everett and Brent, prominent Democrats, including Senators Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly, and Congressman Greg Stanton, have also weighed in on the matter to support Yu. However, the story of Yu’s illegal entry into the U.S. is not entirely clear-cut, and many unanswered questions remain.
According to Yu’s husband, Aldo Urquiza, per AZ Central, she immigrated to the United States illegally via Mexico through a human smuggler. She was reportedly pregnant and fled China due to the CCP’s one-child policy. Initially, she sought legal asylum in the U.S. in 2004 and was released. According to U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, a federal immigration judge issued a removal order in 2005, as reported by Fox 10. This order went through various appeals until Yu was denied asylum by the Ninth Circuit Court in 2016. However, according to the August 2016 unanimous ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Yu’s request for asylum did not rest on China’s One Child Policy but rather her seeking protection “from her father,” and from “persecution based on discrimination against her as an unwed mother.”
The court found:
Lai Kuen Yu, a native and citizen of China, petitions pro se for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) order dismissing her appeal from an immigration judge’s decision denying her application for asylum and withholding of removal. We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252. We review for substantial evidence the agency’s factual findings, Zehatye v. Gonzales, 453 F.3d 1182, 1184-85 (9th Cir. 2006), and we deny the petition for review.
Even if not barred from asylum based on firm resettlement, substantial evidence supports the BIA’s determination that Yu did not demonstrate that she suffered harm rising to the level of persecution in Hong Kong or China. See Nagoulko v. 1NS, 333 F.3d 1012, 1016 (9th Cir. 2003) (persecution is “an extreme concept that does not include every sort of treatment our society regards as offensive”).
Substantial evidence also supports the BIA’s determinations that Yu failed to demonstrate the government would be unwilling or unable to protect her from her father, see Rahimzadeh v. Holder, 613 F.3d 916, 920 (9th Cir. 2010) (applicant bears the burden of establishing that abuse was committed by the government or an agent the government is unwilling or unable to control), and that Yu failed to establish a well-founded fear of persecution based on discrimination against her as an unwed mother, see Nagoulko, 333 F.3d at 1016-17 (being “teased, bothered, discriminated against and harassed” did not compel a finding of persecution); Fisher v. INS, 79 F.3d 955, 962 (9th Cir. 1996) (en banc) (persecution does not include “mere discrimination, as offensive as it may be”). Thus, Yu’s asylum claim fails.
Because Yu failed to establish eligibility for asylum, she necessarily cannot meet the more stringent standard for withholding of removal.
McLaughlin told The Center Square in an email, “On November 14, 2013, the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed her appeal and upheld her final order of removal. On August 23, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied her appeal. On June 12, the Board of Immigration Appeals granted her a temporary stay of removal while they consider her motion to reopen. She will remain in ICE custody pending her removal proceedings.”
While Yu is lauded by her supporters for her civic contributions to her community, critics question how her minor generosity absolves her of illegally overstaying in the U.S. for 21 years.
“Why are so many Democrats and even at least one Republican lining up to take up her case when Yu’s deportation was initiated under the Biden Administration after being adjudicated under the Obama Administration,” questioned one Republican activist.
Yu married her husband Aldo Urquiza in 2025, and according to Everett, is “trying to use being married to an American to become a citizen,” raising the question whether this attempt, if true, places Yu at risk of prosecution under 8 U.S.C. § 1325 and 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a).
According to a source on Capitol Hill, several members of Congress have inquired as to the status of the case and the implications suggest that, short of direct intervention from President Trump, Yu’s deportation order is likely to stand.
Main Street confidence ticked upward in July, with the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index rising 1.7 points to 100.3, edging above its long-term average for the first time in months. The lift was driven largely by more owners reporting better business conditions and viewing it as a good time to expand.
The latest figures, however, paint a mixed picture. While sentiment improved, NFIB’s Uncertainty Index climbed eight points to 97, and labor quality has re-emerged as the top challenge, cited by 21% of owners, the highest share since early spring.
Survey results show growing confidence in day-to-day operations. Thirteen percent of owners rated their business health as “excellent,” up five points from June, and 52% said it was “good,” up three points. Reports of “fair” or “poor” conditions declined. Owners’ outlook on the economy also improved: the net share expecting better business conditions jumped 14 points to 36%, well above historical norms. Sixteen percent said it is a good time to expand, up from 11% last month.
Even with the improved outlook, sales remain a point of concern. Eleven percent named poor sales as their most pressing problem — the highest since February 2021. Inflation worries held steady at 11%, the lowest level since September 2021, though 28% plan to raise prices in the months ahead, a sign that cost pressures persist.
Worker shortages remain acute. Thirty-three percent of owners reported job openings they could not fill, the lowest since December 2020 but still well above average. Of those hiring, 84% said they had few or no qualified applicants. Plans to boost pay are cooling: 27% reported raising compensation in July, down six points, and 17% plan to do so in the next three months. Labor costs were named the top concern by 9% of respondents.
Capital investment showed modest improvement. Fifty-five percent of owners reported spending in the past six months, with the largest share buying new equipment. Still, plans for future capital outlays remain below long-term averages. Borrowing conditions are relatively stable, with only 4% saying their last loan was harder to get. Interest rate concerns remain low, though 25% of owners borrow regularly — a historically small share.
Jonathan Eberle is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
