Florida university system to accept admissions test popular with Christian schools

Exam connected with efforts to promote classical Western studies

Greek philosopher Aristotle is among the ancient thinkers promoted in school curricula that has become popular with many Christian schools and homeschoolers. Photo by Tbel Abuseridze; licensed by Unsplash.

A standardized exam that could make it easier for students at Christian high schools to get into the colleges of their choice has been approved for use by the Florida’s public universities.

The State University System of Florida Board last Friday approved the use of the Classical Learning Test as an alternative to the far more popular SAT and ACT tests. The CLT is a secular rather than specifically Christian test, but the vast majority of colleges and universities that formally accept the test are Christian in nature.

Of the six schools’ logos displayed on the CLT’s website homepage, all six are Christian — three of them evangelical (Hillsdale College, Colorado Christian University and Wheaton College) and three of them Roman Catholic (Wyoming Catholic College, University of Dallas and Mount St. Mary’s University).

The maker of the test, Classical Learning Initiatives, also makes standardized tests for elementary and secondary students. Those tests have been particularly popular at parochial schools and with homeschools.

The tests aren’t designed for specifically Christian students, but those students could do well on these tests because many parochial schools and home schools have curricula that are similar to what the testing company supports.

The decision by the Florida college board does not apply to schools below the college level.

According to the New York Times, Florida’s university system is the first one in the country to accept the CLT as an entrance exam, although they are some state systems that don’t require entrance exams and presumably could consider CLT results if they were submitted by students.

Acceptance of the CLT was strongly promoted by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has sought to remake education in his state. The CLT was also supported by conservative interests, who see the approach taken by the Classical Learning Initiatives as a way of supporting an education that places more emphasis on classical Western thought. Such an emphasis is also present in the curriculum often used by conservative homeschoolers and many religious schools.

Although the classical approach isn’t billed in the least as religious in nature, religious thought comes into play because of the way it has influenced Western culture.

Christian thinkers prominent in author list

The makers of the CLT have provided what they call their “author bank,” a list of the authors whose writings are used for most of the test segments involving reading and writing. (Similar lists are not available for the SAT and ACT.) As would be expected for any serious studies about Western civilization, the list includes thinkers and writers such as Plato, Aristotle, William Shakespeare, Charles Darwin, Mark Twain, Earnest Hemingway, Voltaire, Sigmund Freud, Benjamin Franklin and Martin Luther King. Toni Morrison is the most modern of the writers; Confucius and Mahatma Gandhi are two of few non-Western thinkers listed.

But the list also includes dozens of thinkers particularly important to Catholic and Protestant history; among them are Church fathers Tertullian and Origen, St. Augustine, St. Thomas à Kempis, St. Teresa of Ávila, St. Thomas More and C.S. Lewis.

Among the organizations that have endorsed the CLT series of tests is the Association of Christian Schools International. Its website offers this testimonial from Northside Christian Academy of Lexington, S.C., which suggests why Christian schools have found value in the tests:

We are very thankful for CLT and for all that they stand for. We believe God has called them to a great mission and we are grateful that the Lord has allowed us to partner with them in our shared vision for education. We are so impressed by the content provided in CLT’s exams that we will be adding the CLT score to our official transcript this year. CLT is a great testing company that stands for the Truth! We are so grateful that God has called the wonderful people at CLT to stand up and stand strong in a culture that is warring for our students’ minds and souls.

Although the CLT organization wouldn’t use such religious language, it makes clear that its goal goes beyond offering testing services, but to influence education — because schools tend to teach to the tests. “CLT hopes that by offering a new standard that puts students in front of the thinkers and questions that have most meaningfully shaped our culture for the past two millennia, we can be a catalyst for renewal in education nationwide,” the company says.