by David Kelly, The New American:
Parents Defending Education (PDE), a grassroots organization “working to reclaim our schools from activists imposing harmful agendas,” released a report on Wednesday that provides evidence linking the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to sponsoring affiliated educational programs to a number of American K-12 schools.
The report, titled “Little Red Classrooms,” details how 143 school districts, including 20 near military bases, have or had partnerships with Confucius Institutes to provide “Confucius Classrooms,” which are “centers that teach Chinese language and culture.”
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The PDE research uncovered evidence of numerous schools receiving a combined total of nearly $18 million in financial aid from Chinese government-affiliated entities over the course of a decade. One example that the report shared was on Sisters School District in Oregon, which has an active contract with the Confucius Institute at Portland University. The report stated, “The district’s high school World Languages page noted that its Chinese program featured ‘three native speaker Chinese teachers sponsored by Hanban, a part of the China Ministry of Education.’”
Another example shared in the report was how the Highland Park Independent School District in Texas received a $20,000 grant for the “operation and supplies of the Chinese courses,” from the Confucius Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas in 2020. Those funds reportedly “were also to be used by a district staff member to ‘travel to China for educational purposes.’”
The Little Red Classrooms report stated:
The Chinese government’s effort to forge ties with American schools through its Ministry of Education is one facet of the Chinese Communist Party’s broader soft-power strategy to influence policy in nations throughout the world. Expanding Confucius Classrooms in the United States has been a top priority for the Chinese government, the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found.
The State Department designated Confucius Institutes a “foreign mission” of the Chinese Communist Party in 2020. As noted in the State Department’s report, these programs are funded in part by the Chinese government under guidance from the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, “the Chinese Communist Party’s overseas propaganda and influence operation.”
PDE president Nicole Neily told Fox News Digital, “The alarming evidence uncovered by our investigation should concern parents, educators, and policymakers alike. Families deserve to know who is influencing the American education system so that they can make informed choices about what their children are learning behind closed doors.”
“The Trump administration took steps to rein in Confucius Institutes at colleges and universities. It is frightening, however, that no such transparency mandate exists at the K-12 level,” Neily continued. “Accordingly, it is imperative that elected officials at both the federal and state levels take immediate action to gauge the extent of these programs in order to ensure that American schoolchildren receive a high-quality education free from undue foreign interference.”
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