As a mother of a then-Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology student, I recall conversations with fellow parents about suspicions they long held about the mysterious Thomas Jefferson Partnership Fund. It is a nonprofit organization located inside the high school, seemingly dedicated to raising money for the former No. 1 high school in America.
There was a discussion with one fellow parent in particular who started to dig into the entities that were providing financial backing to this fund. As an avid researcher, she had compiled seven years’ worth of newsletters and annual reports produced by the TJPF. She highlighted and circled three donors that stood out: Tsinghua University High School, Ameson Foundation, and Shirble Department Store Holdings China.
We both wondered: Why would multiple China-linked groups give huge amounts of money to a public school outside of Washington, D.C.?
Recently discovered emails reveal they appeared to be buying access to the school’s intellectual property to copy the material and use it to build their own “Thomas Schools” in China. The China-linked entities seemingly spent millions to infiltrate the school and its administrators through the Thomas Jefferson Partnership Fund.
In 2023, Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Michelle Reid was forced to admit that the district had received a jarring $3.6 million from the three Chinese entities. Reid stated that “the TJ Fund from the outset followed a cautious approach to these relationships.”
In contrast, the nonprofit organization’s executive director stated in a 2017 email that “it is understood that TJHSST and TJPF are supportive of the opportunity to name [a new Chinese] school ‘Shanghai Thomas International School,’ or any name with likeness thereof” and that “we have no objections to this usage.” She then said, “Furthermore, TJPF fully acknowledges TJHSST’s role in the inspiration and establishment of said school.”
This raises the still-unanswered question: Who at Fairfax County Public Schools authorized the nonprofit organization to make this endorsement?
In March 2023, Parents Defending Education submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to FCPS to learn more about these so-called partnerships. The district first quoted PDE, a nonprofit organization, $35,910 to process 122,975 pages related to the request. The request was modified, and the final quote from the school district was $13,930. In response to a follow-up request for “contracts,” which was $3,885, almost 50% of the emails were fully redacted, making the total $17,815 to obtain emails and documents from a taxpayer-funded public high school and its engagement with China, a foreign adversary of the United States.
The district took eight months to process the records request. The FOIA results show that publicly advertised donations were, in fact, long-term contracts. For example, on April 18, 2014, an internal email from then-principal Evan Glazer containing the subject line “PF Agreement signed this week,” reads, “I wanted to alert you this week 4/17 and 4/18 the Thomas Jefferson Partnership Fund (TJPF) signed agreements with Ameson Foundation and Tsinghua University to provide professional development and support in their efforts to build STEM programs.”
As a result of the “signed agreement” Glazer cited, FCPS leadership and staff at TJHSST diverted significant time and attention, including FCPS-contractual obligations, away from the students in the building and instead spent thousands of hours at the direction of both the TJPF staff and the TJHSST principal for TJPF-related requests. There is no indication that the TJPF reimbursed FCPS for these hours.
The Partnership Fund signed another agreement in 2015 with Ameson, which its president, Sean Zhang, called a “seven-year collaboration.” Emails reveal a TJHSST staffer informed employees, “Partnership Fund has a contract with Ameson that they will pay $1 million in exchange for help in getting their schools up and running in China, called The Thomas Schools.” In December 2016, the TJPF formalized a relationship with Shirble Holdings China, in which Reid claimed the company “donated” $1.5 million over a roughly five-year period. However, documents obtained via FOIA state an end date of 2030.
For nearly a decade, it was a transactional relationship: China-linked entities gave money, and TJHSST delivered documents and intellectual property. A typical deliverable included “a request from Ameson … to take in-depth photos of the research lab set ups.” In another interaction between the TJPF and a TJHSST staff member, they discussed copying and sharing senior student research directly with China-linked entities without student approval.
TJPF staff members dictated how to copy the files: “Dropbox is not accessible in China — put it on a thumbdrive.” Shared material included curriculum, syllabi, school floor plans, senior student research projects, detailed photographs of the school’s high-tech laboratories, supply lists, and countless multiday, in-person opportunities for the Chinese partners to observe students in class and receive presentations by school staff, during the school day, about every aspect of the STEM classes they taught.
In a separate email dated March 9, 2018, principal Ann Bonitatibus sent an email to the TJPF executive director, Aristia Kinis, stating: “Re. Copies of contracts. When you get a chance next week … may you share with me the Ameson and Tsinghua University contracts, or at least the portions with language that obligate TJ?”
FOIA results revealed the relationship between the Partnership Fund and these partners was a quid pro quo, centered on school leadership exchanging intellectual property created with taxpayer dollars for money and Chinese institutional advantage. One longtime TJHSST staffer referred to the arrangement as a “manual to clone TJHSST.” Why would there be any part of a contract between a nonprofit organization and China-linked entities that obligates a public school in America? The funds appear to have been recorded as “Contributions and Grants” on the nonprofit organization’s 990 forms.
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School leaders betrayed everyone who contributed to the creation and success of the former No. 1 high school in America. Even worse, through their reckless actions, they cost our country a major educational edge over China. TJHSST has fallen precipitously in the rankings of top high schools in the nation since the money from China dried up.
This has largely been caused by a radical change in admission, but it should be noted that getting rid of the competition is a strategy often employed by China. Mission accomplished.
Marissa Fallon is the director of advocacy for Parents Defending Education. She is a founding member of Coalition for TJ, a group of parents and community members in Northern Virginia.