Six New York City education leaders are playing hooky this week to go on an “educational leadership” trip in China, which has raised red flags over the possible involvement of the Chinese Communist Party.
The partially taxpayer-funded 7,300-mile journey from NYC to Shanghai and Beijing comes amid alarming reports of China’s global spying, and as NYC schools face budget cuts.
The trip stems from a partnership between the city Department of Education and the China Institute, a New York non-profit and home to the city’s first Confucius Institute, a program the U.S. State Department has designated a “foreign mission” of the People’s Republic of China and a propaganda tool of the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP.
The NYC group visited the East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai, one of several colleges that support China’s aims to develop advanced military technology and cyber-espionage, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a D.C. think tank and lobbying group founded after 9/11.
Brooklyn’s District 15 — which includes progressive Park Slope and Carroll Gardens — posted on X a photo of the group in China.
Front and center is a smiling Gu Hongliang, vice president of ECNU and a deputy secretary of its “party committee,” which the school’s charter says is elected by its University Congress of the CCP.
Ian Oxnevad, a senior fellow for foreign affairs and security studies at the National Association of Scholars, compared Hongliang’s role to that of the former Soviet Union’s “political officer.”
“It ensures loyalty to the party, state, and ideological orthodoxy,” Oxnevad told The Post.
He questioned the “benign agenda” of China hosting the NYC educators.
“If they want to learn Chinese, they could go to Taiwan and do it without the totalitarianism.”
The China trip was planned in 2019, but delayed by the pandemic, said DOE spokesman Nathaniel Styer.
“New Yorkers with Chinese backgrounds are one of the fastest growing groups in our city and their children attend our public schools. Principals are engaging with Chinese educational leaders to create opportunities for developing and expanding Chinese language and exchange programs in our schools,” Styer said.
He did not address the host’s ties to the communist regime.
The DOE paid for the flights of the six staffers, who are using paid professional development days while schools are in session to attend.
The China Institute covered the hotels, meals and in-country travel, Styer said.
He would not disclose the cost.
The group is touring schools and universities and speaking at conferences as part of the “China Educational Leadership Study Tour & Exchange,” Heather Page, principal of The Baccalaureate School for Global Education in Astoria and one of the attendees, emailed families.
She said she’d be away from Oct. 20 to Nov. 1 and the school would be “in good hands” with two assistant principals.
Also on the trip: Cristina Gonzalez, principal of PS 94 in Sunset Park; Ruth Rodriguez-Rivera, principal of PS 896 in Sunset Park; Nidhi Jaipershad, assistant principal of science at Francis Lewis High School in Fresh Meadows; David Newman, principal of Brooklyn Tech HS; Katrina Billy-Wilkinson, headmaster of The Brooklyn Latin School; and Tzong-Jin Lee, a lead instructor in Brooklyn’s school district 15.
Hoa Tu, superintendent of Queens North High Schools, gave a virtual speech at the conference.
A press release by ECNU boasted about the visit, named each of the US educators, and included photos of them. It said one seminar topic was “Digital Education in K-12 Schools.”
ECNU has sister programs with the China Institute and the Chicago public school district, which both have active Confucius Institutes and partner with universities supporting Beijing’s military-industrial complex, according to the FDD.
“I’d be concerned if they [NYC principals] were carrying cell phones or laptops with identifiable student and teacher information on it,” said education watchdog Leonie Haimson, co-chair of the national Parent Coalition for Student Privacy.
The DOE would not address concerns about digital security.
The China Institute refused to answer any questions about the trip.
Shenzhan Liao, who heads the institute’s School of Chinese Studies, joined the NYC school leaders on the journey.
She did not return messages.