A recently launched admission test that numerous Christian colleges accept as an alternative to the SAT and ACT could get a major boost in visibility and market access from fast-moving legislation in Florida.
Tucked into a broad education bill the Florida House passed unanimously Wednesday are provisions that would help the Classic Learning Test, or CLT, compete with the two long-established admission exams in the nation’s third-most-populous state.
One provision would enable students to use CLT scores to qualify for Florida’s Bright Futures college scholarship program. Another would authorize — but not require — school systems to provide the CLT to 11th-graders.
A third provision would allow the state to promote development of a separate set of exams to help high school students obtain college credit, a potential challenge to the College Board’s Advanced Placement program.
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Taken together, these provisions appear in part to follow through on threats Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has made to challenge the power of the College Board. In January, Florida rejected an initial version of the College Board’s new AP African American Studies course as DeSantis contended that the course was an exercise in liberal “indoctrination.” In February, DeSantis escalated criticism of the College Board. “Who elected them?” he said at the time. “Are there other people that provide services? Turns out there are.”
The College Board, an organization based in New York that also oversees the SAT, declined to comment on the Florida bill. So did the Iowa-based ACT.
The bill, pending in the state Senate, seems on track for enactment because it includes a wide range of initiatives Democrats and Republicans support. “Every single person here is a champion for kids,” state Rep. Alex Rizo (R) told the House just before the 115-0 vote.
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State Rep. Ashley Gantt (D) said in a telephone interview Wednesday that unrelated education initiatives compelled her yes vote and that she should not be perceived as opposing the College Board. “I support College Board and their rigorous curriculum, 100 percent,” she said.
For the CLT, which occupies a small niche in the college admissions world, the bill could represent a breakthrough. The test was launched in 2015 as an alternative to the SAT and ACT. A significant number of its customers are families who home-school their children or send them to religious or public charter schools.
The CLT is two hours long and uses multiple-choice questions to assess reading, grammar and math skills. It uses passages from classic literary and historical texts, with authors ranging from St. Augustine to Voltaire to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The maximum score is 120, compared with 1600 on the SAT or 36 on the ACT.
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The CLT website says the test is accepted at more than 200 colleges and universities, many with Christian ties, including the well-known Hillsdale College in Michigan. Two public institutions listed as accepting CLT scores are Christopher Newport University in Virginia and the University of New Mexico.
Share this articleShareJeremy W. Tate, founder and chief executive of Classic Learning Initiatives, based in Annapolis, Md., which oversees the CLT, said he is excited but cautious about the Florida bill.
“I don’t want to see the movement getting politically hijacked, in terms of CLT being a ‘red-state’ thing,” Tate said. “I don’t think that would be good for anybody. … We hope every college in the country adopts the CLT.”
Tate said the CLT is not an explicitly Christian test and does not seek to associate in any way with Christian nationalism. He added, in a reference to former president Donald Trump: “This is not an alt-right, Trumpy movement.”
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The CLT’s Board of Academic Advisors includes the public intellectual Cornel West, of Union Theological Seminary; Michael Poliakoff, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni; and Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist and trustee of the public New College of Florida.
Tate declined to say how many juniors and seniors take the CLT each year. Overall, he said, his program processes about 50,000 tests a year, but that includes tests for younger students that are not used for college admission.
The ACT and SAT are far more widely known and used. In the high school Class of 2022, more than 1.3 million graduates took the ACT and more than 1.7 million took the SAT.
Usage of the SAT and ACT has shrunk since the coronavirus crisis emerged in 2020, with most colleges ditching admission test requirements and some deciding to ignore test scores entirely.
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But Florida’s public universities are among the relatively few that still require SAT or ACT scores for freshman admission. Whether they will add the CLT as an option remains to be seen. Tate said he recently had a “great” telephone conversation with University of Florida President Ben Sasse.
Asked about the conversation, University of Florida spokesman Steve Orlando wrote in an email: “President Sasse is not currently working on any planned changes. These decisions are made for the entire State University System by the Board of Governors.”
Renee’ Fargason, a spokeswoman for the board, wrote: “We do not comment on pending legislation.”
Even if the CLT is accepted by Florida public universities, scaling it up would prove a major challenge. Academic experts often demand rigorous scrutiny of tests and scores before deciding to rely on them. And brand names matter to college-going students and their parents.
Test-taking patterns, formed over generations, are hard to shake. In Florida’s Class of 2022, more than 100,000 high school graduates took the ACT and more than 190,000 took the SAT.
Tate said the CLT has been growing in Florida. But he declined to provide specifics.
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