School chief: China wants to invest in Chester-Upland

After buying The Waldorf-Astoria, the General Motors Building, and billions of dollars of U.S. treasury bonds, the Chinese may be looking to invest in something completely different -- a broke, struggling school system.

The head of the Chester Upland School District announced Wednesday that he would travel to China to work out a deal in which an elite school would pour up to a billion dollars into the Delaware County district, which is in state receivership, and the communities it serves.

The state Department of Education has expressed grave reservations about the plan, which might seem too surreal for even Hollywood. It calls for Chinese benefactors to put up staggering amounts of money to turn low-performing schools into elite academies that send students to top universities.

"If we're successful in making this work it would change the way our district looks," said Joe Watkins, who was appointed the state's receiver by outgoing Gov. Corbett.

The plan includes creating two high-tech schools -- one a magnet school -- where students would have laptops and iPads, learn Mandarin and travel to China on an exchange program. Watkins said the cash flow would help the district balance its books.

Details of the plan remained murky Wednesday, nor was it clear precisely how the Chinese would benefit, but Watkins said he intends to meet with Tian Gui Lian, president of the Shenzhen Yaohua Experimental School, a top school in the suburbs of Hong Kong, for four days sometime after Thanksgiving.

Watkins was introduced to Lian by a mutual acquaintance -- former U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon, a Republican who once represented Delaware County. Lian wanted to link up with a sister school in the United States, Weldon said. "I said if you really want to make a name for yourself, why not take the most distressed school in the region and turn it around," Weldon recalled.

Pictures on the Chinese school's website show a gleaming, state-of-the-art campus where students focus on math and foreign language, and also study music, information technology, culture, calligraphy, art and English. Along with academic standards, it has a moral code and behavior and dress standards.

Students participate in foreign-exchange programs around the world. The website said its sister schools include the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston and others in Canada, Taiwan and England.

But Larry Trout, an assistant principal at HSPVA in Houston, said the schools parted ways about eight years ago. He recalled that some students traveled to China and Chinese students came to Houston. He said he didn't know why the relationship ended.

In Chester Upland, the partnership would go well beyond student trips. Watkins said that the Chinese would rehab existing district buildings or build new schools and that the district and Lian would work "hand in hand" to run them.

"We want to model what they're doing," he said.

While the district would get an enviable financial boost, the Chinese school is hoping to get the attention of the top universities that they're own students want to attend, according to Weldon. The school president, Lian, wants to eventually start his own university in the United States, Weldon said.

The investors also had expressed interest in the EB 5 Immigrant Investor Visa Program, in which visa applicants invest in a new commercial enterprises that create or preserve jobs, which might entail projects in Chester and other parts of Delaware County, he said.

Watkins would not say how much his trip would cost.

But state officials called it an inappropriate use of taxpayer money.

"It's money that should be used in the district for the benefit of students," Tim Eller, a spokesman for the state Department of Education, said in an email.

He said Watkins only recently told the education secretary of his plan, and that he has failed to provide detailed information about the district's recovery plan.

"Of great concern to the Secretary is why Mr. Watkins' has not explored similar programs/offerings that may be available in southeastern Pennsylvania, across the state and throughout" the country, Eller said.

But school board member Anthony Johnson said the partneship could help the district, where high charter school enrollment has "drained our finances."

"Our biggest problem is the kids that go to the charters," he said. "The point is to get kids back to the district."

kboccella@phillynews.com

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