#College Board reportedly helped China gain ‘strategic access’ to US education system

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College Board president David Coleman
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College Board, one of the largest standardized testing organizations globally, worked closely with the Chinese Communist Party for almost two decades to help them gain “strategic access” to the US’ primary education system, according to a new report.

The report, published this month by the National Association of Scholars, alleges that the organization has worked in partnership with Beijing since at least 2003 to develop the AP Chinese Language and culture exam and help them establish Confucius Institutes.

The Confucius Institutes operate 550 Chinese culture and language programs in colleges and universities, including 75 in the US. Last year, a Senate Intelligence subcommittee decried the institutes given that their funding come “with strings that can compromise academic freedom.”

According to the report, College Board CEO David Coleman referred to the Hanban, the Chinese government agency that oversaw the educational institutes, as “the sun” whose light “the moon,” referring to College Board, was “so honored to reflect” in 2014.

In exchange, College Board was given generous funding from the Chinese government.

“The College Board’s steadfastness to the Chinese government is astounding. Previous NAS reports have documented the College Board’s ideological skew in the AP U.S. History and AP European History courses,” NAS president Peter Wood said in a statement.

“Now we learn that, even as the U.S. Department of State and FBI warn against China’s aggressive campaigns to capture American education, the College Board has nonetheless forged ahead with new Chinese government initiatives. More than ever, we need a serious rival to the College Board to provide competent, rigorous, uncompromised test materials for American students,” he continued.

The Trump administration has cracked down on the Confucius Institutes in recent months as the US-China relationship has deteriorated.

Relations between the two tanked this year over Chinese concealment of early coronavirus data and the central government’s elimination of political autonomy in Hong Kong.

Last month, the State Department ordered the institutes’ US headquarters as a foreign mission, requiring it to declare all its personnel and property to US authorities and finally offering US officials some insight into their operations.

At the time, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described the institutes as “an entity advancing Beijing’s global propaganda and malign influence campaign on U.S. campuses and K-12 classrooms. Confucius Institutes are funded by the PRC and part of the Chinese Communist Party’s global influence and propaganda apparatus.”

The nation’s top diplomat argued that the effort was necessary to “ensure that American educators and school administrators can make informed choices about whether these CCP-backed programs should be allowed to continue.”

A spokesperson for College Board did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.