Students applying to Florida's state universities will now be able to submit exam scores from a conservative and Christian-backed alternative to the SAT and ACT, known as the Classic Learning Test.
The CLT is most commonly taken by students who are in private schools or home-schooled. Over 200 colleges currently accept the test, many of which are small, private or faith-based. The test was launched in 2015.
On Friday, the governing board for Florida's state university system
approved the exam for undergraduate admissions — making Florida the first state in the country to accept the CLT on a wide scale.
It's the latest change pushed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has set out to overhaul the state's schools and fight against what he calls "woke indoctrination."
Prior to the governing board's vote, the CLT scores were already allowed in applications to Florida Bright Futures, a statewide scholarship program.
Here's what to know:
What is it?
The CLT is based on a classical education model. Like the name suggests, it focuses on classical texts like Shakespeare and Aristotle. But it was also
born out of concerns that today's education relies too heavily on "current trends in American culture and legislation."
Its
board of academic advisers includes conservative activists such as Christopher Rufo and Mark Bauerlein, as well as people affiliated with religious schools like
Hillsdale College.
The exam is two hours, about an hour shorter than the SAT and ACT. It's taken online and divided into three sections — verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning, and grammar and writing. The essay portion of the test is optional.
In a practice test
provided by the CLT, passages are used from Plato's
The Republic, Cicero's
On Friendship and Thomas Ă Kempis'
Imitation of Christ.
How does it compare to the SAT and ACT?
The CLT calls itself a more "more rigorous and comprehensive measure" than the SAT and ACT. But organizations behind both tests say otherwise.
The College Board, which oversees the SAT,
said there is little evidence proving the CLT can adequately assess college preparedness. It specifically pointed out that in a CLT practice test, a quarter of math questions appeared "below high school grade level" and statistics concepts were not tested.
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