On March 8, 2023, Parents Defending Education sent letters to Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares asking them to investigate the relationship between Fairfax County Public Schools, the TJ Partnership Fund, and money from Chinese government-linked entities. Many PDE members are parents of children in Fairfax schools.
The TJ Partnership Fund raises money for Thomas Jefferson High School and works closely with the school. Its staff, including its director, work inside the school’s front office and its calls go through the school’s main phone line. Until 2020, its employees had Fairfax County Public Schools email addresses. According to the fund’s own newsletters, Chinese government-linked entities have given it at least $1,000,000. Tsinghua University High School in Beijing gave at least a quarter of a million dollars, and a newsletter said TJ would serve as a model for expanding the Beijing school and described plans for “research collaborations.” In 2018, the fund reported that its largest donor was Shirble, a company based in Shenzhen, China, which gave more than half a million dollars. PDE’s members are concerned about these past and current funding streams into the TJ Partnership Fund from foreign entities, and about what access to school facilities and documents these donors may have received in return.
Defending Education urges the Governor and Attorney General to investigate this foreign funding and fix any illegal policies and practices.
Read the full letters below:
