Chinese Capital Circling Trump's School Voucher Gold Rush

2026-03-29 03:05:58

(MENAFN- Asia Times) In September 2023, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis stunned school choice advocates when he kicked out four private schools from the state's school voucher program.

The schools' offense, according to the state's announcement, was their“direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party,” which were seen as“an imminent threat to the health, safety, and welfare of these school's [sic] students and the public.” The alleged“ties” were not explained in the announcement.

What was surprising about the announcement was that Florida has long been regarded as being“number one in education freedom” by school choice advocates, and its largely unregulated voucher market, along with those of other states, has been described as the“wild west of school voucher expansions.”

A report on the state's announcement by WFTV explained that the governor's decision was likely due to the for-profit owner of these schools, Spring Education Group,“controlled by Primavera Holdings Limited,” which is a reference to Primavera Capital, a private equity investment firm based in Hong Kong.

Spring Education Group is one of the largest operators of private schools in the US, overseeing more than 200 schools in 19 states. The company's schools are considered prestigious and include Stratford School, LePort Montessori Schools, Nobel Learning Communities, and BASIS Independent Schools.

In a written statement to WFTV, spokespersons representing the four Florida schools, banned from the voucher program, stated,“We are regularly acknowledged as one of the best private schools in our area and have a track record of delivering outstanding educational outcomes, which is why parents choose us. Our schools are locally run, abide by local, state, and federal laws, and do not have ties to any government or political party.”

Nevertheless, when the New York Post, a conservative tabloid owned by right-wing firebrand Rupert Murdoch, caught wind of this story from Florida, it reported that“[a] group of elite private schools in Manhattan and Brooklyn,” operated by BASIS Independent Schools, were sold to Spring Education Group in 2019.“Primavera's chairman and CEO is Fred Zuliu Hu, who has previously been named as a one-time senior member of the Chinese Communist Party.”

The article further said that“While BASIS schools tell parents in a disclaimer that its parent company, Spring Education Group, is controlled by Primavera, which it says, 'is itself owned by Chinese persons residing in Hong Kong,' the schools do not acknowledge the Communist link. Primavera dispute[s] that Hu is currently a Communist Party member.”

But concerns about Spring Education Group and Primavera continued to be a flashpoint among conservative lawmakers and advocates in other states. In February 2024, Republican US Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas wrote a high-profile letter to then-US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin expressing concerns about another company associated with Primavera Capital called Tutor.

“Tutor is a long-standing provider of tutoring services to our service members and their families,” Cotton wrote, and its acquisition by“a Chinese-owned corporation,” along with the Princeton Review in 2022, concerned him.“Tutor collects personal data on users,” the senator said,“such as location, internet protocol addresses, and contents of the tutoring sessions.”

That business arrangement, Cotton maintained, was akin to“paying to expose our military and their children's private information to the Chinese Communist Party.”

Cotton's letter quickly caught the attention of multiple right-wing advocacy groups. In March 2024, Parents Defending Education, a conservative astroturf organization that accuses public schools and universities of spreading“transgender ideology” and liberal“indoctrination,” issued a“non-exhaustive list of school districts that give students access to Tutor.” (In 2025, Parents Defending Education rebranded to Defending Education.)

The New York Post promptly amplified the concerns of Parents Defending Education, reporting that Tutor was assisting the Chinese government in“infiltrating American classrooms.” Picking up the New York Post's conspiratorial language, another conservative group critical of public schools, Freedom in Education,“uncovered” evidence of Tutor facilitating“infiltration of Chinese spyware” in schools in Georgia.

By December 2025, it was no longer“clear” if Primavera divested from Tutor or still owned shares, according to the Washington Free Beacon, a right-wing media site funded by billionaire Paul Singer, a hedge fund manager and“major donor to Republican political candidates.”

But, pointing to the connection between Primavera and Spring Education Group, the article stated,“There are also signs of [China's] new approach to influencing elementary and high schools: just buy... [the schools].... The expansion of groups like Spring Education into the American educational landscape comes as American youth are increasingly open to far left socialist economic ideology, as evidenced by the election of [New York City Mayor] Zohran Mamdani.”

Also in December, another news outlet in the right-wing media echo chamber, Texas Scorecard, warned readers of Primavera's connections to the Spring Education Group and its ownership of 13 schools in the Lone Star State. The article was published around the time Texas debuted a $1 billion school voucher program.

In other states, which like Florida have largely unregulated school voucher programs, state tax dollars are already flowing to private schools operated by Spring Education Group. In North Carolina, Spring Education Group operates eight schools, two of which are participating in the state's voucher program (the other six are preschool-only programs, which are ineligible for North Carolina voucher money).

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