Tulsa Education: November 2023 Archives

An appropriations amendment by Oklahoma 1st District Congressman Kevin Hern to prevent federal funding for Confucius Classrooms in K-12 was approved by voice vote by the U. S. House of Representatives on November 14, 2023. The one-sentence provision would amend H.R. 5894, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024: "None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to fund a Confucius Classroom."

Tulsa Public Schools is one of seven school districts in the US that hosts a Confucius Classrooms. At the July 10, 2023, board meeting, the TPS board approved the contract for what the agenda said was Booker T. Washington High School's 14th year of participation in the Confucius Classroom program. The 2022 renewal of the Confucius Classroom was one of several items pulled from the board's consent agenda for additional scrutiny thanks to the absence of a board member.

Here are Mr. Hern's remarks on the floor of the House:

Madam Chair, through the Belt and Road Initiative, the BRI, the Chinese Communist Party has been spreading its malign influence over the last decade. This initiative has one goal: to increase China's economic and political dominance over the United States and the world.

Disguised as harmless global infrastructure, transportation, and production networks, the Belt and Road Initiative, or the BRI, is anything but harmless.

Education is one of the primary targets of the BRI. They are succeeding in their mission to indoctrinate American students with their Communist ideals. Chinese state media even brags about the success of Confucius Institutes and other educational initiatives in spreading the CCP's influence.

This doesn't stop on our college campuses. Right now, China is invading our K-12 schools through Confucius Classrooms. Over the last decade or more, the CCP has infiltrated our public school system, setting up Chinese language and cultural programs in primary and secondary schools.

These Confucius Classrooms are funded by the Chinese Government, both directly and through Confucius Institutes and other third parties. Make no mistake, this is not through the kindness of their hearts. The CCP is not interested at all in helping American students learn Mandarin. They want to brainwash our children, plain and simple.

Since 2013, the authoritarian Government of the People's Republic of China has sent curriculum and PRC-trained teachers into hundreds of K- 12 schools across America as an unofficial component of its global influence campaign.

The CCP has committed countless violations of human rights, and its authoritarian agenda is antithetical to the democratic principles our country was founded on. Chinese propaganda has no place in our education system.

We have taken important steps toward mitigating Chinese influence at American universities by cracking down on Confucius Institutes. Now that the Chinese Government has directed its attention toward elementary and secondary schools, it is time we do the same and protect our children from the malign influence of the CCP.

My amendment would prevent Federal funding for these Confucius Classrooms.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Blue-haired Connecticut Democrat Rosa DeLauro gave a weak speech in opposition, claiming that the proposal would create fear and would cause harm and violence to Asian-American teachers and students. DeLauro claimed the amendment was not being offered in good faith because the numbers of Confucius Institutes (Communist China's initiative on college campuses) had plummeted.

Hern offered a second amendment to fund enforcement of a provision of the No Surprises Act which requires a cost estimate for medical services to be provided to patients prior to treatment. The provision was passed nearly three years ago, but the Biden Administration has not enforced it. This Hern amendment also was approved by voice vote, but Rep. DeLauro demanded a recorded vote, which means that the vote on this amendment will be postponed under clause 6 of rule XVIII. It's curious that DeLauro did not use the same method to block the Confucius Classroom amendment.

While I appreciate Congressman Hern's attention to this issue, I do wonder how enforceable his proposal is. It appears not to prohibit schools from taking funding from other sources, such as a Chinese Communist Party-backed non-profit, for a Confucius Classroom, and it does not prohibit the idea from returning under another name.