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The State University System of Florida seems poised to accept the Classic Learning Test, a controversial alternative to the SAT and ACT that focuses on “classical” texts in the Western and Christian canon, from applicants to its dozen four-year institutions.
The system’s Board of Governors will vote on the question today. If it passes, the system can begin accepting CLT scores starting this fall.
Ahead of the vote, SUSF chancellor Ray Rodrigues extolled the benefits of the CLT and welcomed the prospect of a change to the admissions process.
“Our system is never content to rest on our laurels,” Rodrigues, a former Republican state lawmaker who was appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis last November, wrote in an email. “The CLT places a strong emphasis on classical education, which includes a focus on reading, writing, and critical thinking skills … [and] expands and engages more students.”
While the outcome isn’t final, Jeremy Tate, founder and designer of the CLT, indicated to Inside Higher Ed that the vote is all but certain to pass.
“We’ve been told there’s almost a zero percent chance it won’t go through,” he said. “We don’t want to be presumptuous, but it seems like more of a rubber-stamping.”
Florida’s would be the first state higher education system to approve the exam, which had previously been confined mostly to Christian colleges and select private institutions, including the conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan and the classics-focused St. John’s College in Maryland.
In May, DeSantis signed a bill requiring the state-funded Bright Futures Scholarship to accept the CLT, opening the door for institutions with Bright Futures recipients to do the same. Later that month New College of Florida—an SUSF campus that has been at the center of DeSantis’s mission to reshape higher education in the state—announced it would accept the exam.
The move to approve the CLT at Florida’s largest public university system follows a year of right-wing political involvement in the state’s higher education institutions, including a recent spate of conflicts with the College Board, the nonprofit organization that administers the SAT, over AP course content.
