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Houston ISD’s board of managers opted to delay a vote Thursday on a proposal to establish a partnership with a Chinese university after Superintendent Mike Miles’ administration failed to answer some board members’ questions about the controversial program.
Board members pushed a vote to their May meeting on the proposal, which would involve the university providing funding for Chinese language and cultural classes in HISD through a “Confucius Institute.”
The decision followed board members asking several questions that Miles and other administrators didn’t answer, including the length of the partnership agreement, how HISD would decide which schools should access grant funding and where the money would come from.
In the 2010s, HISD received grants totaling about $150,000 annually to help pay for teaching assistants and other costs to provide similar classes at roughly a dozen campuses through a Confucius Institute partnership, district officials said. That partnership involved the College Board, an American nonprofit best known for developing college entrance exams, and China’s ministry of education.
HISD Chief Academic Officer Kristen Hole told board members that the latest proposal is with a new partner — Southwest University of Political Science and Law, a school located in China’s eighth-largest city — but it would be a “renewal” of the earlier agreement. However, board members contested Hole’s characterization given the change in the proposed partner.
“I think it would be helpful … that we get some clarity going forward about the source of funding because I’m a little bit confused about whether the university is providing the grants, or the Chinese government,” board member Adam Rivon said.
HISD administrators said the district would not hire full-time teachers from China as part of the latest agreement.
The vote to delay consideration of the measure represents a rare move for HISD’s state-appointed board, which typically ushers through Miles’ proposals with unanimous support. Throughout a back-and-forth conversation between Hole and the board, audience members repeatedly shouted “table it.” The unanimous decision to delay the vote prompted applause.
Confucius Institutes became popular across the U.S. beginning in the mid-2000s, with various reports suggesting hundreds of U.S. school districts, colleges and universities formed partnerships with educational institutions in China.
In the past several years, Republicans have contended the programs allow China to assert “soft power” by exposing children in the U.S. to aspects of Chinese culture they are likely to find positive, while avoiding objectionable topics such as documented human rights abuses in the country. Democrats haven’t been as critical of the programs, though they haven’t vocally supported them.
However, nearly all such programs have shut down in recent years amid worsening U.S.-China ties and political backlash from Republicans. In 2019, Congress passed a sweeping defense bill that included a provision allowing the federal government to withhold funds from higher education institutions that offered Chinese language instruction through a Confucius Institute.
HISD’s past Chinese program received minimal negative or positive attention last decade. The university partner Miles proposed partnering with faced accusations in 2022 that it funded a Dutch academic center that pushed false information downplaying China’s role in human rights abuses against its Uyghur population.
HISD operates a roughly 750-student Mandarin Chinese immersion school, which is one of the campuses that previously received grant funding. The district offers few other Chinese language classes.
Asher Lehrer-Small covers education for the Landing and would love to hear your tips, questions and story ideas about Houston ISD. Reach him at asher@houstonlanding.org.
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