House Passes Three Bills to Block CCP Intrusion Into U.S. K–12 Classrooms

A U.S. national flag flies over the U.S. Capitol building. (Li Chen/The Dajiyuan)

[People News] The U.S. House of Representatives passed three bills this week aimed at protecting American K–12 classrooms from the influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

According to a Voice of America report, the three bills are the “Promoting Responsible Oversight To Eliminate Communist Teachings for (PROTECT) Our Kids Act,” also referred to as the “Protect Our Kids Act”; the “Combating the Lies of Authoritarians in School Systems (CLASS) Act,” referred to as the “Classroom Education Act”; and the “Transparency in Reporting of Adversarial Contributions to Education (TRACE) Act,” referred to as the “Trace Act.”

Proponents of the legislation say these three bills collectively increase transparency, block the flow of hostile funding, and strengthen protections for American K–12 students and their families.

The Protect Our Kids Act aims to combat foreign interference by prohibiting federal education funding from going to any school that receives funding from the Chinese Communist Party. The Classroom Education Act seeks to ensure transparency by requiring schools to disclose foreign funding sources exceeding a certain amount as a condition of receiving federal education funding. The Trace Act grants parents the right to be informed, allowing them to know about foreign influence in their children's public schools, including the right to review and copy classroom instructional materials and teacher professional development materials funded by foreign governments and related foreign entities.

A fact sheet released by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce states that the CCP presents not only academic security risks to U.S. K–12 schools but also geopolitical and national security risks.

According to this fact sheet, titled “Expel the CCP from Our K-12 Schools,” from the perspective of geopolitical security risks, “Confucius Classrooms” are a form of soft-power strategy explicitly organized by the CCP Central Committee’s Politburo to advance CCP interests. The fact sheet states that American education should teach American values, not CCP values, and that the CCP should be expelled from U.S. K–12 schools.

The fact sheet states that the CCP, through “Confucius Classrooms,” has infiltrated more than 500 U.S. K–12 schools, “increasingly tightening its control over the minds of our children.” Since 2004, China has established numerous “Confucius Institutes” and “Confucius Classrooms” abroad to advance CCP interests. Confucius Institutes are located on university campuses, while the smaller Confucius Classrooms are located in K–12 schools.

The fact sheet cites a report by Defending Education, a U.S. grassroots organization that promotes quality education, stating that many Confucius Classrooms are located near U.S. military bases, which clearly poses a national security threat and is an obvious attempt by the CCP to indoctrinate the children of U.S. military personnel.

The fact sheet also states that from the perspective of academic security risks, every dollar from the CCP comes with conditions, leading to extreme censorship in academia to comply with CCP policies. These restrictions have a chilling effect on academic freedom and will harm the intellectual freedom and curiosity of future generations.

After the passage of the three bills, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, issued a statement Thursday (December 4) saying this is a “victory for America’s parents, students, education system, and national security. We will never allow foreign or hostile powers—especially the Chinese Communist Party—to infiltrate U.S. schools, fund, and influence the content taught to American students.”

He said that these three important measures increase transparency, strengthen parental rights, and ensure that American classrooms are protected from harmful foreign propaganda.

Tim Walberg, a Republican Representative from Michigan and chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said in a statement Thursday: “Authoritarian regimes around the world, such as the Chinese Communist Party, are trying to exploit lucrative economic ties with schools to undermine American values and interests. ‘Confucius Classrooms’ are a prime example of how foreign-funded programs can shape curricula and exert influence over our K–12 classrooms. … American schools should teach critical thinking, not enemy propaganda.”

John Moolenaar, a Republican Representative from Michigan and chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, said in a statement: “China is attempting to influence what American students learn in classrooms from kindergarten to college. These commonsense bills will protect them from Chinese propaganda and expose how China is trying to influence our education system. The CCP desperately tries to prevent Americans from learning about its horrific Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen Square massacre of innocent students, its genocide against Uyghurs, and its authoritarian plans for the future. These bills will empower parents and prohibit Chinese influence in our classrooms so that American students can learn the truth about the CCP.”

These three Republican-backed bills received the support of more than 30 Democratic House members, but more than 160 Democratic lawmakers voted against them.

Robert C. “Bobby” Scott, a Democratic Representative from Virginia and senior member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, criticized during Wednesday’s floor debate that the bills do not address the challenges in urgent need of improvement in American education but only increase the administrative burden on schools, “which is the very definition of an unfunded mandate.”

According to the U.S. legislative process, for a bill to become law, identical versions must pass both the Senate and the House and then be signed by the President.

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