Dear Governors: Take Action on Tutor.com Ties

April 16, 2024

Several parent advocacy groups joined PDE Action in submitting letters to demand that governors take action to address the threat the Chinese Communist Party poses on American K-12 students. This includes through contracts with Tutor.com.

Primavera Capital Group, a corporation based in China, purchased Tutor.com in 2022. Tutor.com collects user data, including location and IP addresses. Chinese law compels businesses like Primavera Capitol Group to assist the People’s Republic of China in its data collection efforts. That means that at any time, the Chinese government may request Primavera Capitol Group to turn over data on American users of Tutor.com to the Chinese government.

American students deserve access to academic supports, like virtual tutoring services. But the threat the Chinese Communist Party poses to American institutions is clear. Leaders at the local, state, and federal level must act to protect American children from the threats of the Chinese Communist Party.

Want to send a letter to your governor about Tutor.com contracts in your state? Reach out to us at [email protected]

Letters:

Letter to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp

Letter to Washington Governor Jay Inslee

Dear Governor:

We, the undersigned parents and advocates, urge you to protect children from data security risks at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—including through contracts with China-based companies. 

This includes Tutor.com. Beijing-based Primavera Capital Group acquired the online tutoring provider in 2022. Districts in your state have contracts with Tutor.com, raising serious national security concerns. 

We take our freedoms for granted in the United States. Unlike U.S.-based companies, businesses in China are subject to Chinese laws that compel them to assist in the People’s Republic of China’s data collection efforts. Primavera Capital Group also has financial ties to ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company. The threat TikTok poses to American national security is clear: The app has already confirmed that sensitive data about some American users is stored in China, and ByteDance employees in China have accessed “nonpublic” user data. 

For schools with Tutor.com contracts, that means American students’ names and IP addresses could potentially end up in the hands of an adversary of the United States. This can create serious vulnerabilities in our schools. Even more alarming, this includes data and information from children of American service members, as the Department of Defense also has active contracts with Tutor.com. 

TikTok and ByteDance’s shoddy security protocols, and its subjugation to CCP-data collection efforts, spurred a bipartisan effort in Washington, D.C. to take action. Parents, too, understand the national security risks TikTok poses: More than two-thirds of American parents are aware that the Chinese government has access to user data through the application.

Tutor.com poses a similar threat. As our governor, we urge you to wake up to the very real threats of the Chinese Communist Party’s demands on China-based companies, and the subsequent consequences for American users of TikTok and Tutor.com—including K-12 students.

Tutor.com is just one of several ways in which the CCP is infiltrating our K-12 education system and attempting to use American schoolchildren as pawns in their broader campaign to unseat the United States as the world’s foremost economic and military superpower. Last year, Parents Defending Education uncovered 143 American school districts that, over the course of a decade, fostered ties with the Chinese government or CCP affiliated entities. Now, Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party head Xi Jinping plans to bring 50,000 American students to China on all-expense paid trips over the next five years. 

Make no mistake: These efforts are not part of some benevolent scheme to help American schoolchildren. Rather, China’s government is working to make American schoolchildren amenable to its political aims. We hope you will confront this brutal reality. As parents and advocates, we humbly ask you to take the following steps: 

  • Assess which school districts in your state have Tutor.com contracts
  • Educate these districts and the public about the national security risks posed by contracting with Tutor.com
  • Find alternative tutoring programs to share with districts that are based either in the United States or non-adversarial foreign nation
  • Review your school’s other contracts to ensure there are no partnerships with the Chinese government or entities affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party
  • Initiate a discussion with your state department of education about model lessons that teach children about the evil of communist regimes, including the fact that more than 100 million people are estimated to have been killed by communist regimes—including that in China as well as the former Soviet Union—in the last century alone. 

We sincerely hope you will take this opportunity to protect your state, and students in your state, from the threat of the Chinese Communist Party.