The administration of Glenn Youngkin, the governor of Virginia, had posted the demand that a liberal school system entirely slash ties with allegedly Chinese Communist Party-linked groups.
“The news that Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST) and the TJHSST Partnership Fund (Fund) have accepted significant financial contributions from entities known to have connections with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) raises significant concerns,” and could affect the overall goal of getting rid of the “political indoctrination in our children’s classrooms,” exclaimed Secretary of Education Aimee Rogstad Guiderato Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Michelle Reid.
Guidera issued a demand to know just how much money had been accepted, how the money was utilized, whether or not the “CCP-linked entities that contributed to the Fund provided any guidance, influence or instructional materials,” and whether or not any school materials or data from the students were provided to the Chinese groups.
“I am requesting that you direct schools within your division to cut ties with CCP-linked partners. Furthermore, I have asked the Virginia Department of Education to investigate the prevalence of such relationships between CCP-linked partners and local school divisions across the Commonwealth,” the letter explained.
As reported by the Washington Examiner, documents unearthed by Parents Defending Education, that TJ “partnered with Tsinghua University High School (TUHS) in 2014 to assist it and China generally with adopting the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and advanced lab research TJHSST is famous for. TUHS is closely tied to Tsinghua University, considered by the Pentagon to be a Chinese military university.”
The TJ Fund also was issued multiple hundreds of thousands from a Chinese company called Shirble and the Ameson Education and Cultural Exchange Foundation, both of which sport ties to a foreign influence campaign known as the United Front Work Department, reported the Examiner.
Youngkin is a Republican who managed to secure the governorship in 2021 mostly due to his platform regarding education.
Just last month, Democrats in his state managed to kill a plan for schools to speak about and highlight the historic outcomes and their associated outcomes in regard to Communism with one official for the teachers union stating that it could end up sparking anti-Asian bigotry since some modern communist countries exist in Asia.
Additionally, Democrats have been routinely stating that schools should officially incorporate lessons on leftist ideology such as the 1619 Project because they simply wish to teach what they label as “whole history,” a rationale that seems a bit at odds with the mindset of Virginia Democrats who have been quite vocal about their desire to lower the number of Asians throughout competitive programs like Thomas Jefferson, including by using steps such as the removal of admissions testing because Asians have historically scored higher on them. Democrats seem to prefer what they have called a “merit lottery” as a preferred method. This plan ended up showing a drastic 54% reduction in the total number of Asians making it into the highly competitive magnet school.