Fight To Keep China Out of U.S. K-12 Classrooms Comes to Congress

American children in grades K-12 are influenced by many things, including their parents, peers, and various forms of media. China, Qatar, and Iran don’t belong on the list, and three recent bills moving through Congress indicate that many lawmakers agree.

Two of them, the PROTECT and CLASS Acts, address Chinese funding in education by denying federal money to schools that have received funds or entered a contract with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The third bill, the TRACE Act, goes further, giving parents the right to know about foreign funding in schools, and to review any curricula or other materials that were purchased using foreign funds.

Focused primarily on China, the bills take important steps but are not full-blown solutions to the problem of foreign influence in the U.S. primary and secondary education systems.

Why China Tops the List of Concerns

Over the last few years there have been a number of espionage cases involving Chinese students at U.S. universities, prompting calls for tighter restrictions on foreign students’ access to the American higher education system. The federal government also forced the closure of almost every one of China’s Confucius Institutes in American universities in 2021 based on concerns they might act as espionage incubators. Other measures are also in the works.

Since most investigations into Chinese influence are centered on higher education, many Confucious Classrooms — the Confucius Institutes’ K-12 counterparts — have gone unnoticed. On the K-12 level, where Chinese soft power can be felt in Mandarin language classrooms, instruction can even come in the form of singing old Communist Party songs, modified to fit a less ideological audience.

The three new bills are designed to address these loopholes.

A System Under Broad Assault

Any exclusive focus on China, however, would be myopic. For example, Qatari money influenced the CHOICES program at Brown University, which provided social studies curriculums to 8,000 schools across all 50 states. A report from the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy shows the curriculum becoming increasingly hostile towards Israel, questioning the state’s legitimacy.

Other reports have uncovered private K-12 schools that have received part of their funding from the Islamic Development Bank, the Board of Governors of which represents countries including Iran, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. The bank’s website shows it has spent $13.1 million to support 44 K-12 schools in America.

That makes the TRACE Act particularly important, as it allows oversight into the entire K-12 space.

Accounting for All Malign Actors

Lawmakers should ensure that the scope of any new laws or policies include not only China but also funding from other countries that seek to influence our education system in ways that damage American values and Western norms.

Further, the scope of these bills should not focus solely on funding, but also consider curricula and professional development tools that are paid for by foreign entities or created in coordination with domestic malign influences. The TRACE Act is an example of this approach.

Finally, effective legislation should include monitoring mechanisms like Section 117 in the Higher Education Act, which requires the reporting of foreign gifts and contracts. This should be tailored to address funding of any amount (for higher education it is now at amounts of $250,000 and above), as even small amounts to develop curricula can have a large impact. These measures should go beyond monitoring funds to create a database of all curricula and professional development material tied to foreign sources so it can be reviewed and assessed before being accepted into American K-12 institutions.

Jennifer Richmond serves as the deputy director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ (FDD’s) Program on Education and National Security. For more analysis from the author and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on foreign policy and national security.