Florida’s public universities will now permit the Classic Learning Test in admissions, offering a conservative-backed alternative to the SAT and ACT. Florida is now the first state university system in the country to allow for the Classic Learning Test (CLT), which has gained recent popularity among the state’s Christian and charter schools.

The classical education model — not to be confused with “classics” or “classical humanities” — focuses on a return to “core values” and the “centrality of the Western tradition.” The Florida state university system’s board of governors on Friday approved the test for use in undergraduate admissions.

    • Ertebolle@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      29
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      That’s done regionally, unfortunately, and I expect that whichever one accredits schools in the South is going to quickly be taken over by conservative jackasses if it hasn’t been already.

      (OTOH, employers and graduate programs are free to assign whatever level of credibility they wish to any given university’s diploma)

        • ElleChaise@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          1 year ago

          That’s what I’ve been wondering, can’t other states essentially ‘lock in’ participants of schools abusing the system? If you want to go to god school, you can only use that education in god land with the fairy folk, the rest of us on Earth can simply deny the legitimacy of those credentials in real education settings, forcing real changes; or at least keeping the crazy at arms length.

          • plz1@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            1 year ago

            That’s how accrediitadtion is supposed to work. We shall see, I guess.

      • Hugin@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        That is incorrect. Universities are a collection of colleges and each college is accreted individually by a national accreditation board. So in north America colleges of engineering are accredited by ABET.

        While I was getting my ABET accredited engineering degree my university was launching a new college of medicine. They were new so unaccredited and had to do a ton of work to get the program accredited.

        One of the best ways to avoid scam schools is to check if the degree is accreted by the respective organization for the field.

      • candybrie@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Is it really? I’m only familiar with ABET, which is national, but only for engineering and technology. I figured other subjects would have similar accreditation boards. Surely some other fields like medical and law do?

            • insomniac@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              You probably don’t have one without the other and national institutional accreditation used to be the hallmark of online scam schools. But I don’t know, I’m not a universityologist.

    • Hyperreality@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      I don’t live in the US. Due to historical/religious reasons, the government here doesn’t do standardised testing in schools and gives schools quite a lot of freedom. Graduate from the worst school and you can still go to university (with some exceptions for stuff like med, but I digress).

      What my university did, is simply schedule a really horrible statistics course on the monday morning, first year, first semester, course book thicker than the bible. Same thing for most courses. You’re studying German? Enjoy learning advanced grammar at 8AM. You’re studying history? Roman history with a side of Latin at 8AM. The overfull auditorium emptied within weeks as people dropped out.

      Maybe universities in Florida should do something similar. Rather than refusing students, have them quit. Certainly a financially disastrous way to learn the limits of the power of prayer and the relevance of the bible to statistics, but the Lord works in mysterious ways.

      And as any fitness business will testify after the month of january, it’s an excellent business model having the majority who drop out subsidise those who don’t. Really allows you to improve the level of service you can offer those who don’t quit.

      • PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        I don’t understand how this works.

        Are they funneling people from the worst schools into these weed-out classes? Because that doesn’t sound fair at all.

        • Hyperreality@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          12
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          No. Everyone gets a weed-out class.

          It functions as a defacto entrance exam. Like a navy SEALs bootcamp where everyone’s allowed to enter, but those dumb or deluded enough to think they can make it, run away screaming once they finally realise they don’t have what it takes.

          Certainly better than having the weed-out classes later on in your studies, especially when you’re writing your (graduate?)master’s thesis/research.

          • PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            Oh okay. I think when I was learning Spanish I was taught about some international universities that had extremely difficult entry exams as another to weed out a ton of applicants. The cost of attending was relatively low.

            I thought that was a good model, too.

  • DevCat@lemmy.worldOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    65
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    How long before universities in blue states stop accepting students who relied on these pieces of crap?

    • HipHoboHarold@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      24
      ·
      1 year ago

      Also, jobs. Like I know in general most places don’t give a shit. If it’s a shitty for profit university, maybe. But for the vast majority of the time, it doesn’t matter…

      But this seems to be a little different. Maybe some of them should start caring about this.

      • Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        17
        ·
        1 year ago

        I can only hope for an interview to go something like this:

        “This position requires a college degree, but all I see on your resume is this worthless garbage from Florida. Did you ever get a real education? Let’s find out, explain evolution to me…”

    • ℛ𝒶𝓋ℯ𝓃@pawb.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      1 year ago

      I had a classical education (full of Christian dogma of course), but we were still expected to know evolution, psychology, secular philosophy, logic, etc. And we still had to do well on the ACT. And the critical thinking and philosophy I learned helped me to escape indoctrination, to the point that theology classes showed me why I’m not a Christian. So I’m not against “classical education” in general - it’s when they put religious and political indoctrination above actual classical academics like in this case that it’s an abomination.

  • SuddenlyBlowGreen@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    52
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    “As this assessment focuses on critical thinking skills, Florida will lead the way in filling our state and nation with bright and competitive students.”

    Christian

    Critical thinking

    Pick one.

  • candle_lighter@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    I don’t understand how this is a “Christian SAT” other than than that it’s popular with Christian schools.

    • DevCat@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      They are eliminating anything that they consider “woke” or liberal from the curriculum. The whole point of this is Christian indoctrination. Remember, in the long run we win.

      • candle_lighter@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        But how is the CLT known as the “Christian SAT” other than that it’s used by Christian Schools?

        I don’t see how adding another option is Christian Indoctrination unless said option itself is religious which nothing on the test or website is as far as I can tell.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yeah, from what I can tell, it largely relies on classic literature for its passages instead of coming up with new passages, but otherwise it’s very similar.

          I think it’s great to have another option for students to take. I took the ACT and SAT and got a similar score for each, but if the CLT does a better job at measuring something a student is good at, maybe it could help them get into a program they want.

          I don’t see anything Christian about it, other than that many private schools are backed by a Christian denomination, and it’s much easier for a private school to change acceptance criteria than a public school.

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    I don’t see what the issue is. The CLT looks like it’s basically the SAT, but it’s newer and uses snippets from classical literature instead of new passages. Other than that, it measures largely the same thing.

    I guess there’s a stigma against it because it’s used largely by private religious schools? But a lot of large private universities have ties to religion, and it’s probably way easier for a private school to try out something new than for a public school, so that association doesn’t necessarily mean the test has anything religious in it.

    I’m all for having another big test kids can choose to take. The school I went to accepted both the ACT and the SAT, and students were allowed to submit one or both (I took both and submitted my ACT, though I got a similar score on each). I imagine that schools that try this new test will likely do the same, keep accepting the SAT, but also accept the CLT.

    If anyone is actually familiar with the test itself, could you fill me in on what makes this a bad test? You know, other than association with Christian private universities.