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Foreign Adversaries and America’s Classrooms

(Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)

Rhyen Staley is a researcher for Defending Education. He holds a master's degree in elementary education and has over a decade of classroom experience in both public and private schools. He has over 25 years of volleyball coaching experience from women’s Division I down to junior high.

As the United States engages in kinetic operations against Iranian targets in the Middle East, there are legitimate worries about terrorist activity here at home. Coupled with the long-term impact of the open border policies of the Biden administration, American citizens have reason to be fearful. 

According to a House Judiciary Committee report, from 2021 to 2024, Border Patrol encountered hundreds of “illegal aliens on the terror watchlist” and tens of thousands more from Asia and the Middle East. These numbers include over 500 Iranian nationals and tens of thousands of Chinese nationals. 

In addition to these serious concerns, there are other safety and national security vulnerabilities that have gone woefully unaddressed, specifically as related to the education system. For years, K-12 schools have been naively jeopardizing the safety of their students, unnecessarily exposing them and their families to foreign adversaries. 

For example, the recent explosion and popularity of student walkouts across the country have put scores of children at risk of physical harm. In too many cases, administrators have allowed students to leave school grounds to parade through communities unsupervised. Unfortunately, these events have already yielded several acts of violence perpetrated by students against law enforcement and fellow classmates. 

More importantly, because students, teachers unions, and activist nonprofits regularly organize and broadcast these walkouts, the chances of pre-planned attacks by radical actors will likely increase. Parents have been right to question how readily some school administrators permit student street activism during the school day. 

While these protests and walkouts leave children highly susceptible to physical danger, various schools allow staff to take trips to maligned nations with no regard to how international tensions put the children at risk. 

For instance, roughly one hundred Tamalpais High School (California) students and staff were slated to take a nine-day trip to Havana, Cuba, in February. Previous district-approved pilgrimages to the communist nation included a visit to the Museum of the Revolution and a “Tobacco Farm Experience.” 

Tacoma Public Schools’ (Washington) Lincoln High is planning a “cultural trip” to China in the summer of 2026. The high school has had a long-standing relationship with a “sister school” in China that features regular trips to the communist country. In fact, in 2024, Chinese leader Xi Jinping himself invited students to travel to the Asian country during his visit to Lincoln High. 

Student trips are not the only cause for concern. The presence of foreign nationals in our school system also warrants closer scrutiny.

For years, K-12 schools across the country have participated in the Confucius Classrooms program facilitated by the Chinese Ministry of Education through nonprofits. Part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the program often includes financing, books and materials, and sending Chinese nationals to teach in American schools. 

More troubling still is that over 30 of the school districts participating in the Confucius program were located near military bases. This not only puts those installations at risk of surveillance or possibly worse, but it also leaves military families and personnel exposed to bad actors.

These fears are not speculative. If China is willing to spy and harass its own people on American soil and on university campuses, what keeps it from doing the same to Americans? 

In light of all of this, federal, state, and local leaders need to prioritize the safety and security of American K-12 students and schools. Protecting students begins with simple steps such as limiting unsupervised walkouts and ending trips to adversarial countries. Additionally, passage of the DETERRENT and TRACE acts by Congress could be a vital first step to increasing protections for educational institutions. 

Complacency is no longer an option. Policymakers and school officials must closely examine the potential threats that foreign adversaries pose to American children and families through the school system. America’s future depends on it. 

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

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