As a mother of two young daughters, I must safeguard the values that make our country wonderful for the next generation. The recent acquisition of Tutor. com through Chinese personal equity firm Primavera Capital Group undermines those beloved values.
This progression makes me think of myself as a parent who understands that young people want extra educational help outside of the classroom. Tutor. com users, along with countless vulnerable students, will now have to give up their privacy rights, exposing them to a “TikTok-level privacy and security risk. “
This is especially troubling given that over the past two years, public school districts have invested more than $30 million in Tutor. com and its subsidiary Princeton Review. This monetary investment provides the Chinese company with unprecedented information for the private information of millions of students. and families across the country. Lawmakers like Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) have rightly expressed considerations about the implications of this for data.
Tutor. com’s “Terms of Service” leave no room for ambiguity: the company claims ownership of all knowledge collected on its platform, adding that generated through underage students. These situations give Tutor. com the alarming authority to capture and transfer the knowledge of American students at any time. Limitations.
Several states, including Virginia, California, Washington, and West Virginia, have partnered with Tutor. com, inadvertently exposing their citizens to significant privacy risks. The U. S. government’s confidence that entities operating in China would possibly be forced to share percentage data with Beijing adds an additional layer. of concern.
In my home state of Virginia, at least 12 school districts, in addition to some of the largest, have recently used Tutor. com, spending more than $8 million on the service over several years. Although the Virginia Department of Education’s tutoring manual does not have an express list of approved providers for its ALL In Tutoring program, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA), given his positions on China, would likely want the company to provide updated guidance.
The U. S. Department of Education The U. S. Department of Education will also take swift and decisive action so that the rules warn school districts about the dangers inherent in partnering with Chinese education providers like Tutor. com. This would allow local school government to make informed decisions that prioritize the protection of our classrooms. .
In addition, the U. S. Department of Education. It deserves to ban the use of the public budget for Chinese-owned educational products and facilities. This proactive measure would save taxpayers money by supporting entities that compromise the privacy and security of U. S. citizens.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL WASHINGTON REVIEWER STORY
As a parent, I sense that many young academics would possibly need extra help with their studies, especially after the negative effects of widespread lockdowns during the pandemic. But the last place our nation’s young people deserve to turn for help deserves to be a now-run company. of a regime that, at the very least, worsened the impact of COVID by lying to the rest of the world during the early months of the pandemic and still refuses to cooperate with independent investigations into the origins of the virus.
For this reason and many others, school districts and states deserve to prioritize the safety and privacy of our young people by temporarily addressing threats posed through Tutor. com, a Chinese company. Together, we can ensure a safe educational environment for everyone. and every student.
Mary Vought is a mother of two school-aged children, a small business owner, and a senior scholar at the Independent Women’s Forum. He lives in Arlington, Virginia.