Report: Company Behind SAT, AP Tests ‘Strongly Promoted’ China-Run Confucius Institutes

AP Photo/Charles Dharapak
AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

An extensive report from the National Association of Scholars (NAS) released Thursday finds the College Board is deeply connected to a Chinese agency that runs Confucius Institutes in several academic establishments in America.

Titled “Corrupting the College Board,” the NAS states that Hanban, the entity controlled by the Chinese Communist government that oversees Confucius Institutes, is partners with the company that manages the SAT and Advanced Placement exams for high school students.

According to the report:

With help from the College Board, the Chinese government has sought to corner the market on overseas instruction in Chinese language and culture. In the short-term, it provides native Chinese speakers to teach in American schools. In the long-term, it trains the Americans who will become the core of Chinese language instruction in the United States.

The NAS says the College Board, which also pushed Common Core national standards, has brought 1,650 Chinese teachers to the United States.

That guest teacher program, the report states, “leans heavily on its ability to bring ‘authentic’ Chinese language and culture to American schools. It boasts that Chinese guest teachers can ‘assist in curriculum development, program expansion, and partnership creation’—plus ‘lay a foundation’ for AP Chinese classes.”

NAS finds the College Board developed an Advanced Placement Chinese Language and Culture test, partially funded by the Chinese government.

In 2014, the College Board established Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms as part of a “College Board/Hanban Confucius Institutes and Classrooms network.”

“The Confucius Institutes were set up at Broward County Public Schools in Florida, Houston Independent School District in Texas, Davis School District in Utah, Clark County Public Schools in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the East Central Ohio Educational Service Center,” according to “Corrupting the College Board.”

During an analysis of school spending in the Clark County district in 2015, EAG News found American taxpayer dollars were spent on sending American teachers to Beijing, China, for the “Confucius Institute Annual Conference.”

That same year, Broward schools sent 17 students “on a two-week Hanban-sponsored trip to China.”

The NAS finds the five institutes are still operating, “and some have expanded to host additional College Board/Hanban programs.”

The report contends several U.S. government leaders are onto the Confucius Institutes as “tools of soft power and influence” for the communist Chinese government.

As such, about 40 colleges and universities have cut ties with Hanban and the Confucius Institutes. But the College Board has not.

According to the report, the College Board does not just have financial ties to China. It has an “affinity” for the communist country.

NAS cites the Atlantic reporting on “flagrant SAT cheating in China,” including wealthy students paying off proctors and hiring test takers. Some students receive the questions in advance. It all leads to financial windfalls for the company.

“For its own integrity and for the sake of the millions of American students who take College Board tests and use College Board materials, the College Board should immediately sever all partnerships with the Hanban,” the report says while acknowledging “it may be unrealistic” to expect such reform.

The NAS report commends, among other things, that the federal Department of Education issue warnings to all institutions hosting Confucius Institutes and for Congress to condition funding to the College Board “on the immediate severance of all partnerships with the Hanban or any of its replacement organizations.”

Read the entire report here.

Kyle Olson is a reporter for Breitbart News. He is also host of “The Kyle Olson Show,” syndicated on Michigan radio stations on Saturdays. Listen to segments on YouTube or download full podcast episodes. Follow him on Twitter, like him on Facebook, and follow him on Parler.

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