This ought to be a no-brainer: Let’s stop adversaries such as the Chinese Communist Party from gaining a foothold in America’s schools. If a nation is a designated enemy of the United States, it should be barred from establishing relationships with our K-12 school districts, including gifting funds, establishing partnerships, and interacting with students, teachers, or staff.
Shockingly, there are far too many schools that have ignored and disregarded this threat altogether, and at what cost?
The enemies of the U.S. have no incentive to help advance the educational development of students in our country. It should raise major red flags, then, that according to a report published last summer from Parents Defending Education, more than $18 million from China’s government has made its way into America’s schools over the past decade. This isn’t just funding for language and cultural classes. It is essentially a pay-to-play scheme that is opening the doors of our classrooms to the adversaries of the U.S., giving them access to our students and intellectual property.
In northern Virginia, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, one of the nation’s top high schools, received $3.6 million from the Chinese government and businesses associated with the CCP. In return, email exchanges and documents received via public records requests reveal that Chinese officials were granted access to lesson plans, curricula, and student projects put together by the American students. The CCP was so successful in extracting information from TJHS school officials that they were able to establish 20 “Thomas Schools” across China with the information they stole from one of America’s most elite high schools.
Earlier this year, 24 students from an Iowa high school had an all-expense trip to China paid for by the Chinese government. They were invited by the Ministry of Education to spend eight days touring the communist country. Following the trip, Iowa school officials put together a video featuring clips from students and staff praising the Chinese president, including singing a song praising Chinese President Xi Jinping. One student even went as far as saying, “Thank you, Grandpa Xi” in Mandarin.
At Tacoma High School in Washington state, PDE uncovered that links between the school and the CCP date back to 2015, when Xi visited the school. In the proceeding years, it was discovered that the school fostered ties with a Confucius program linked to a high security risk military university. The Washington school district also established a partnership with YuCai Middle Schools in China, and the choir of Lincoln High School was even set to perform for Xi and his wife as recently as November 2023.
It is also worth noting that Tacoma’s China ties are through Seattle Public Schools. Seattle Public Schools works with Pacific Lutheran University and Sichuan University in China to foster its Confucius Classroom. Sichuan University is considered a “high risk” school because it does research for China’s nuclear weapons program.
American schools are not getting “free” money from China. The CCP is paying to gain unfettered access to our academic institutions and potentially to sensitive student data and information. It is also giving Chinese officials a platform to use our classrooms as a tool in information warfare to spread their propaganda and attempt to influence students across the U.S.
Students are one of our most vulnerable populations, and China is looking to exploit them to achieve its strategic goal of overtaking the U.S. as the world’s superpower. We cannot allow China to continue to use our classrooms to spread its lies and malign influence.
To address this, this week, the House Education and Workforce Committee, under the leadership of Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC), considered several pieces of legislation designed to combat China’s undue influence in our schools. These bills included Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and David Joyce’s (R-OH) Combating the Lies of Authoritarians in School Systems Act, or CLASS Act, and Rep. Kevin Hern’s (R-OK) Promoting Responsible Oversight To Eliminate Communist Teachings for Our Kids Act, or PROTECT Our Kids Act, both of which aim to prohibit federal funding from going to school districts that have established partnerships with China or receive funding from the CCP.
The committee also considered Rep. Aaron Bean’s (R-FL) Transparency in Reporting of Adversarial Contributions to Education Act, or TRACE Act, which would deliver urgent transparency to parents so they are able to know whether their children’s schools are accepting foreign funding from America’s adversaries.
The threat posed by the CCP and other foreign enemies should unite all who are concerned about the security of our country and who want to protect our way of life to be enjoyed by future generations. This is especially true for parents nationwide who want to ensure their children are not being exposed to threats presented by our adversaries.
We commend the work of the lawmakers on Capitol Hill who have made protecting children a priority and look forward to seeing unanimous support behind common sense measures to send China a clear message: America’s students are off limits.
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Michele Exner is the director of federal affairs for Parents Defending Education.