Classic Learning Test Takes on College Admissions Duopoly

The Classic Learning Test, an alternative to standardized tests like the SAT and ACT, has scored recent legislative victories in Texas and Oklahoma, with another win expected in Louisiana. These changes allow students to use their CLT score when applying for college.

Jeremy Tate, a former schoolteacher who created the CLT in 2015, spoke with The Daily Signal about the legislative victories and future goals of the Classic Learning Test. As its CEO, he is passionate about offering students an alternative college entrance exam.

Tate’s responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.

What is the Classic Learning Test?

The CLT is an alternative to the SAT and ACT. The SAT and ACT have been around for a long time. The first SAT was administered back in 1926. The ACT launched in 1959, so the CLT is the third college entrance exam.

But the SAT and ACT both align with the Common Core standards in 2015, and they also became increasingly woke, kind of crazy, so there was a real demand for a third option. 

Can you explain what transpired in the Texas and Oklahoma legislatures recently?

This story really starts in Florida with Gov. Ron DeSantis, Bright Futures [a scholarship funded by the state of Florida and the Florida Lottery], and the Classic Learning Test’s satisfying graduation requirements in Florida.

For a number of years, folks that were in the Texas and Florida legislatures had their own kids at classical schools, and they realized what had happened: SAT and ACT had aligned with the Common Core, but for their own kids to get Bright Futures, they had to go and take a test that didn’t look like what they were doing in school.

And so, they were saying, “Why not get CLT included in the Bright Futures?” Florida had a proof of concept: “If you want to be a leader in education, if you want to be pro-school choice, well, school choice doesn’t mean that much if everyone is so beholden to the College Board.”

They really laid the groundwork for a whole host of states to follow. We think the CLT is very close to a big win in Louisiana. 

Testing choice goes hand-in-hand with school choice as well. In Texas, specifically, the legislation does a few different things, but one thing to focus on is that the SAT and ACT were written into statute, essentially giving these companies this duopoly by Texas law. What the legislation there did is it wrote them out, creating essentially an equal playing field for CLT or other players as well.

I think we all know that when companies are forced to compete, then the customers end up benefiting from that as well. The people win when customers compete, and the SAT and ACT haven’t needed to be very competitive, so they have terrible customer service, a very bad product.

They can push all of their ideological craziness, and nobody can do anything about it. In Oklahoma, the legislation did even more than it did in Texas, and so now you can be a Sooner at the University of Oklahoma with your CLT score.

The majority of the students taking the Classic Learning Test, as of 2024, are public schoolers. Does that surprise you?

What happened in Florida is just wild. We went from about 25,000 students that took the CLT in 2023 to 200,000 in 2024, and most of those students were students in Florida.

Most of those students were looking to satisfy graduation requirements or qualify for Bright Futures. If you get a 96 on the CLT, you go to Florida State or University of Florida for free, which is incredible.

What’s your vision for the Classic Learning Test in the future?

By 2040, we want to be No. 1 over the SAT and ACT. That’s the goal.

And it seems like a random thing, “Alright, the SAT or ACT college entrance exam, who cares?” But it is this uniquely powerful lever where if you can change this one thing, this one line of code, you can change education.

In some ways, the college entrance exam defined what it means to be educated coming out of high school. So, our question is, “Can you grapple with the giants? Can you read Plato and Aristotle? Can you read Saint Thomas Aquinas?” The CLT is challenging young people to show their ability to do that.

What are the main factors for the Classic Learning Test’s success?

The first one I would say is our team. We’ve got an incredible team, nearly 60 full-time.

But here’s the thing: Most of these young people that we employ are graduates of Hillsdale or the University of Dallas or Patrick Henry College. There’s kind of this irony where their education wasn’t aimed at jobs training, but they’re well-formed, they have a sharp moral compass, and they’re really passionate about what the CLT is doing.

They really believe in it. They believe in this idea that if you change the college entrance exam, you can fundamentally change education.

Our mission to reconnect knowledge and virtue is the second factor. For the entirety of human history, the cultivation of virtue was the goal of education.

That broke apart in the 20th century. You could be educated while living a life of debauchery.

We understand that that’s wrong, right? Education is about human formation, shaping people to love the good, the true, the beautiful.

In many ways, education is Christian sanctification, in the way we understand it as Christians. I think the mission of CLT is a mission that people get very excited about.

And then the third factor, I would say, would be the SAT and ACT are just really bad. They’re sleeping giants, they have a bad product.

Nobody’s pumped up, nobody’s excited about the vision for education that they’re pushing. They’re bureaucratic, they’re sleepy. They’ve gone all in with the woke ideology and now they’re trying to disentangle from it, and they don’t know who they are.

I heard somebody put it this way: you’ll never meet an organization that hates itself more than the College Board, because the College Board is fundamentally about merit.

They’re a standardized testing company that believes standardized testing is racist. So, I think precisely because just how bad they are is a big reason for CLT’s success.

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