Corey DeAngelis Disgraced, Not By Liberals He Trolled, but Right-Wing Parents

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In July, Sarah Fields, a podcaster and the president of a conservative pro-family organization, posted a short thread on X about self-proclaimed school choice “evangelist” Corey DeAngelis. 

After expressing opposition to the pro-voucher movement he embodied, she added, “Side note — Corey A. DeAngelis, the face of school choice, was a model that catered to the gay community” and included a black-and-white photo of what appeared to be a shirtless DeAngelis in a suggestive pose. 

At the time, the revelation didn’t cause a stir or interfere with DeAngelis’s hectic schedule as a leading lobbyist for “funding students, not systems.” He furiously promoted his book, “The Parent Revolution,” which earned an endorsement from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. And Fox News and other conservative outlets continued to feature him and his message that schools focus too much on the “LGBT’s as opposed to the ABC’s.”

But that abruptly ended Friday when Current Revolt, a far-right fringe account on Substack, reported that DeAngelis had a gay adult film career under the pseudonym “Seth Rose” and appeared in a 2015 film set in a college. The Betsy DeVos-backed American Federation for Children, where DeAngelis has been a senior fellow pushing school choice bills since 2021, quickly erased him from its website. 

“We have placed the employee on leave as we investigate this matter further,” a spokeswoman for the pro-school choice group said.

Has anyone heard from Corey DeAngelis in the last few days? He normally tweets at me incessantly- he’s been very silent. Hope he’s ok.

— Randi Weingarten 🇺🇸💪🏿👩‍🎓🟣🌴🥥 (@rweingarten) September 22, 2024

Known for aggressive online rhetoric aimed at school districts, teachers unions, and particularly American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, DeAngelis has been uncharacteristically silent on social media since the news broke and didn’t return texts or a phone call from The 74. His last post on Thursday referenced a video of Vice President Kamala Harris talking about children being “of the community.”

“They think they own your kids,” he wrote.

Online and in person, DeAngelis has been an avid culture warrior and perhaps the most visible face of a brand of school choice that paints traditional districts as failing institutions that are forcing left-wing ideas on students. “School choice defeats the woke mind virus,” he commented in response to a social media post from House Speaker Mike Johnson featuring a “lesson plan” parody that included “drag queen story hours” and transgender students’ participation in school sports. 

He frequently browbeat Democratic opponents to delete their X accounts and trolled them when they blocked him.

But the news of DeAngelis’s alleged past ultimately came not from his many critics on the left, but rather has its origins in an intra-MAGA dispute involving right-wing Texas groups that trade in conspiracy theories and oppose Gov. Greg Abbott’s plan for school vouchers.

The Texas Freedom Coalition, which is run by Fields, calls itself a network of “patriots” who opposed COVID lockdowns. They view vouchers as another form of government overreach.

Fields gave Current Revolt, a far-right site that has posted Hitler memes, credit for digging into gay porn sites to find the film and other photos. But she told The 74, “My post is what caused several people to start asking questions about his past.”

A screenshot of what appeared to be a policy expert profile page for DeAngelis with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization raised red flags for her and other conservative parents who view talk of “global” partnerships as a threat to U.S. independence. One of UNESCO’s goals is “inclusive and equitable quality education.”

“School choice isn’t merely a lucrative scam; it’s a cunning ploy to enable government oversight of all educational avenues through a web of regulations and accountability tied to public funding,” Fields wrote in her July post about DeAngelis. 

DeAngelis has denied any connections to the U.N. group.

Mary Lowe, a conservative activist who split from Moms for Liberty — another close DeAngelis ally — over the issue of school choice, was also skeptical. She said she never understood why conservatives flocked toward DeAngelis after he posted in 2020, “I didn’t vote for Trump — and I’m not a Republican.”

But Gov. Greg Abbott and pro-voucher advocates like the Texas Public Policy Foundation — who have tried and failed for years to pass a school choice law — embraced DeAngelis’s take-no-prisoners style of advocacy. Following other states with similar laws, they want Texas to give parents roughly $10,000 a year to spend on private school tuition or homeschooling. At Republican lawmakers’ invitation, he testified before the Texas House education committee on the topic of “parent empowerment” in 2022, despite the fact that he was single with no children at the time.

“Our moms’ intuition was like ‘There is something missing to this story,’” said Lowe, who founded a new group, Families Engaged for Effective Education, after leaving Moms for Liberty. ‘There is something not right here.’ ”

They label DeAngelis a “slick salesman” for the school choice movement.

It wasn’t until last week, however, that news linking DeAngelis to porn films spread like wildfire on social media.

Immediate reaction to the graphic images spread on porn-related websites and among pro-public school advocates who saw the scoop as “karma” for one of their bitterest foes. Cameron Spradling, an Oklahoma City attorney, asked how Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and state Superintendent Ryan Walters “who are so anxious to privatize Oklahoma public education never vetted Corey DeAngelis?” DeAngelis supported their campaigns in 2022, and Walters similarly accuses public schools of spreading “woke gender ideology” in schools and frequently posts examples of what he considers left-wing indoctrination.

The school choice grifters at the American Federation for Children deleted Corey DeAngelis off their site🫠 pic.twitter.com/d3LX9tSn8O

— Jess Piper (@piper4missouri) September 21, 2024

The Hoover Institution, a Stanford University think tank where DeAngelis has been a visiting fellow for the past year, no longer lists him as an expert, but retains his articles on the site. There have been no changes to his profiles on the sites of two libertarian organizations where he’s been a contributor, the Cato Institute and the Reason Foundation.

On his Eduwonk blog, Andy Rotherham, co-founder of Bellwether, a think tank, called for “a little grace” toward someone he described as a “deeply troubled person.” But he argued that DeAngelis’s tactics, which include spreading fear about drag shows and Pride festivals, are “going to be hard for his allies to defend.”

Other school choice advocates were already pointing fingers back at traditional public schools.

“What’s better? A person with a sinful past trying to do a virtuous thing?” Chris Salcedo, a conservative Latino broadcaster and political analyst asked on X. “Or those claiming virtue, like defenders of gov-ed’s debauchery, who knowingly push evil today?” 

But others said the episode serves as a warning to education activists who place too much faith in one polarizing individual to carry their message.

“Oftentimes these character traits go hand in hand. Being a very outstanding speaker and charismatic leader … comes with a degree of narcissism,” Morgan Polikoff, a University of Southern California education professor, who is gay, told The 74. “The feeling that you’re above reproach can lead to questionable judgment.”

Disclosure: Corey DeAngelis wrote several opinion pieces for The 74 between 2018 and 2023. The Hoover Institution, where DeAngelis served as a visiting fellow until this month, provides financial support to The 74. Andy Rotherham sits on The 74’s board of directors.

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