Editorial: Is new college admissions test about ‘classics’ – or politics?

Listening to the creator of a relatively new standardized college admissions test tell it, he’s all about “education rooted in truth, goodness, and beauty.”

And by that, he apparently means “white, male and Christian.”

Of course, that’s not the spin the State University System Board of Governors put on it last week, when they voted to add the Classics Learning Test to the ACT and SAT as a valid tool for students seeking admission to one of Florida’s 12 universities. That makes Florida the first state in the nation to adopt the test system-wide.

Instead, they nearly knocked themselves out with self-congratulation, bragging in the official press release that they are standing up to “controversy and critics.”

In this case, the controversy was largely self-manufactured. None of the authors that the Classics Learning Test includes in its pantheon of approved texts are banned or restricted from study in Florida’s institutions of higher education (though a few of them, including William Shakespeare and Benjamin Franklin, have written passages that have, or could, offend the delicate sensibilities of the book-banning cartel led by the ironically named Moms for Liberty).

Better prepared for learning?

Here’s what the backers of this latest move aren’t saying: There’s been almost no research that ties scores on the CLT to academic performance or graduation rates for college students. In fact, this test seems designed to swaddle home-schooled students and graduates of private, religious schools from the proper goals of a modern, expansive education, including the ability to evaluate competing points of view or understand cultures that aren’t based in Judeo-Christian, historically male viewpoints.

That makes it scary. Because the aim of the Board of Governors appears to be to change the university system to match the philosophy of this test, rather than choosing an instrument that reflects the proper goals of modern higher education.

Floridians have already seen that in action in the wreckage of the New College, one of the state’s quirkiest, most free-wheeling campuses. Many of its faculty have been sent packing, as Gov. Ron DeSantis carried out his stated intention of remaking it in the mold of ultra-conservative, religious bastion Hillsdale College. But the damage isn’t limited to one campus; DeSantis and the Board of Governors have created an atmosphere that threatens the independence of faculty at all state university and college campuses, as well as efforts to boost “diversity, equity and inclusion” in higher education.

Glaring absences

That’s certainly reflected in the list of authors the CLT draws upon for the reading comprehension portion of its test. Among those who are notably excluded: Nigerian Chinua Achebe, whose novel “Things Fall Apart” is considered a seminal work of African culture; 11th century noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu, who wrote “The Tale of Genji,” a thousand-year bulwark of Asian literature, or Khaled Hosseini, whose 2003 novel “The Kite Runner” effortlessly gained acclaim as a modern classic.

Instead, the test promotes writers like St. Teresa of Avila, a 16th-century Carmelite nun. In a passage from a sample test, students are asked to study Avila’s screed on the “dignity of true poverty.”

“As you have given up revenues, give up also all care about food — otherwise all is lost,” she writes.

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Think about that one for a minute — in a state where the governor has rejected aid that would keep more Floridians on food stamps. How is this less offensive or political than the SAT’s inclusion of passages from modern politicians such as a defense of the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act written by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY? (That portion of the SAT has since been dropped.)

Whose status quo?

As with many of DeSantis’ initiatives, the adoption of this new test represents a non-solution to a non-existent problem.

CLT founder Jeremy Tate told the Chronicle of Higher Education last year, his test “aligns with the vision of education in Florida … because it uses works of Western philosophy and history that are essential to know if students are going to act as informed citizens in our constitutional republic.”

That’s the scariest point of all. This test, and the misleading claim that the so-called classics focus aims to pursue, doesn’t expand Floridian students’ exposure to modern thought. It narrows their vision to a worldview that allocates power based on faith, money and skin color. It prepares them to believe it’s OK for the governor to spend taxpayer dollars on anti-immigrant patrols in Texas (or shoot a few people) or for the Legislature to pass a law making property ownership more hazardous for Asian Americans.

Some might claim that these hazards are overstated. But we can’t help but see a trend — one that’s more about ugly political reality than classical beauty.

The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Contact us at insight@orlandosentinel.com