Is China teaching your child in public school?

Public displays of antisemitism on college campus over the last year have focused attention on foreign entities funding American higher education. But less publicized — and more insidious — are foreign influences in K-12 schools.

Many young adults are arriving on their college campuses already radicalized. Much of that is due to the subtle, hostile influences that they’re exposed to in grade school. Congress must address this critical problem for the sake of the next generation.

In September 2023, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing about how the Chinese Communist Party was influencing the American education system in public and private K-12 schools. Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s superintendent of public instruction at the time, told lawmakers that the “Confucius Classrooms” program was a national security threat, and that Congress should “pass a law to ban schools from accepting money from hostile foreign governments.”

Walters was absolutely correct. China is an expert at using “soft power” to exert its influence around the world. Rather than march an army into enemy territory or fund terrorist groups, China uses industry, infrastructure and education to undermine its competitors.

Whether through funding infrastructure in third-world countries, manufacturing necessary goods such as medical supplies, or providing loans to nations who ask, China understands how to wield influence. Any instance of its government funding an initiative in another country should be viewed with suspicion.

The college-level version of the Confucius Classrooms program, Confucius Institutes, has come under intense scrutiny by legislators on both sides of the aisle over the past decade. These institutes are glorified Chinese propaganda arms that, at their peak, operated on nearly 100 American college campuses, including Columbia and Stanford. They are funded and staffed almost exclusively by an agency of Chinese government’s Ministry of Education. While the public and legislative attention caused many of these institutes to shut down, the K-12 version of the program, Confucius Classrooms, has continued to grow.

While the total number is unknown, the National Association of Scholars released a report earlier this year documenting at least 164 Confucius Classrooms programs across the U.S., 79 percent in public school districts.

The Confucius Classrooms programs primarily teach Chinese language to students, but often they also include courses in history or economics. That may sound benign, but each Confucius Classrooms teacher is hired and approved by the Chinese Communist Party and is expected to promote China and socialism to students. These classes are a subtle way for the Chinese government to influence young Americans and make them more sympathetic to socialist ideology and China’s global aims.

Children should not be taught a history that excludes Tiananmen Square or includes economics based on communist theories.

To hide the appearance of direct financial ties to China, these programs are funded and sustained through nonprofit entities, which in turn receive their funds from China. The group Parents Defending Education released a report last year detailing some of the funding streams from China-backed organizations into American public schools.

An example from the report is Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a public magnet school in Virginia, which “received more than $1 million in financial aid from Chinese government-affiliated entities over the course of a decade.” A similar scheme is repeated in every school where a Confucius Classrooms is located.

While many of these nonprofits are relatively obscure, some are not, such as the College Board. Best known as the organization behind the SATs and AP courses, the College Board has greater access to the public education system than almost any other nonprofit in the country. Its ties to China date back to 2003, when it began working with the Chinese Communist Party to build Mandarin language programs in the U.S. The College Board is responsible for planting at least 20 Confucius Classrooms programs, in addition to the AP Chinese course that it created in collaboration with the Chinese government.

To combat foreign influence in K-12 education, especially from hostile countries like China, there are a couple of legislative fixes Congress can pursue.

One solution is revitalizing the 1938 Foreign Agent Registration Act, which requires the disclosures and registration of anyone with relationships to foreign governments. Unfortunately, this law has broad exemptions from its disclosure requirement for “religious, scholastic, academic, fine arts, or scientific pursuits,” and China’s interests in the education sector clearly fall into those categories. By amending the Foreign Agent Registration Act to remove some of those exemptions, Congress would force nonprofits and individuals connected to China or other hostile actors to be transparent about those ties.

While that would help cut off the funding stream, Rep. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced a far simpler short-term solution: the TRACE Act. This bill would give parents the right to know about any curriculum with ties to another country. If passed, parents would have the ability to review classroom and professional development materials funded by foreign governments and foreign entities of concern. If those materials are going to be in the classroom, parents have a right to know where they originated.

The American education system has plenty of problems without the outside influence of hostile nations. Yet countries like China are using our K-12 schools as just one more way to influence American society. A foreign-linked curriculum designed to teach the next generation to appreciate socialism and to empathize with America’s greatest competitor is a national security threat, and Congress has a responsibility to address it.

Maggie McKneely is legislative strategist for Concerned Women for America, the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization.