Florida's new "classical education" exam to rival ACT/SAT and emphasize Judeo-Christian values

[Arizona Iced Tea]

https://www.axios.com/2023/09/08/florida-classic-learning-test-in-public-university-admissions
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/06/us/florida-classic-learning-test-quiz.html?utm_source=NBC&utm_medium=iframely

Florida just approved a new exam as a competitor to the ACT/SAT and the beginning steps of their goal to phase those two exams out of the state. The CLT, classical learning test, is a brand new exam in Florida designed to test college placement and admissions instead of the ACT/SAT. The exam will focus on traditional values in Western society and emphasize Judeo-Christian values.

A sample reading passage from the exam illustrates this with an exerpt from Chapter 2 of St. Teresa of Ávila’s The Way of Perfection, first published in 1577 and translated by the Rev. John Dalton in 1852.

This comes as the distrust between Florida's education and the collegeboard increases, I wouldn't be surprised if Florida bans the taking of the SAT in the upcoming years and replaces it with this exam. There will likely be a movement to get elite schools like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to accept the score of this exam as part of the college application process.

[WalterWhite]

Is Florida becoming a theocracy?

[jojoju1998]

When Conservatives learn that " Western " Civilization gave us the Protestant Reformation, Liberalism, the French Revolution, Marxism, and the modern nation state we now know today.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Is Florida becoming a theocracy?

Not any more than Nazi Germany was.

[Benjamin Frank]

Not emphasized in what's mentioned in that excerpt but there is a strain of conservative 'intellectuals' who are experts/buffs/academics in Ancient Greek and Roman literature/history/philosophy.

I'm not toally sure where this fascination comes from as it goes against the general 'anti academic' bent of even many conservative 'intellectuals' but it leads into a fascination with 'western' values, and, I believe, not the other way around.

[jojoju1998]

Not emphasized in what's mentioned in that excerpt but there is a strain of conservative 'intellectuals' who are experts/buffs/academics in Ancient Greek and Roman literature/history/philosophy.

I'm not toally sure where this fascination comes from as it goes against the general 'anti academic' bent of even many conservative 'intellectuals' but it leads into a fascination with 'western' values, and, I believe, not the other way around.

" the far-right relies on this construct of Western civilization, which for them means white civilization and culture. So they craft a narrative that begins with Greece and Rome and then continues into the medieval period up through the emergence of modern Europe."


https://www.vox.com/2019/11/6/20919221/alt-right-history-greece-rome-donna-zuckerberg

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

When Conservatives learn that " Western " Civilization gave us the Protestant Reformation, Liberalism, the French Revolution, Marxism, and the modern nation state we now know today.

They already know that. They don't care about "Western Civilization" it just another mask for their racist, fascist, fake Christian tyranny,.

[GeorgiaModerate]

How many colleges and universities outside Florida will accept this as an entrance qualification? I’d bet the number will be very small.

[Continential]

This comes as the distrust between Florida's education and the collegeboard increases, I wouldn't be surprised if Florida bans the taking of the SAT in the upcoming years and replaces it with this exam. There will likely be a movement to get elite schools like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to accept the score of this exam as part of the college application process.

Why would they accept this? If the SAT was somehow banned from being taken in Florida, wouldn't all Florida students go test optional as that's where the direction of college admissions is going?

[Ferguson97]

The exam will focus on traditional values in Western society and emphasize Judeo-Christian values.

"Separation of church and state? Never heard of it."

[DrScholl]

There are no such things as "Judeo-Christian values". That's just a phrase made up by evangelical Christians to push Christian theology without sounding as if they are excluding Judaism, but are clearly excluding other religions. In reality conservatives are all about Christianity only as ruling doctrine.

This comes as the distrust between Florida's education and the collegeboard increases, I wouldn't be surprised if Florida bans the taking of the SAT in the upcoming years and replaces it with this exam. There will likely be a movement to get elite schools like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to accept the score of this exam as part of the college application process.

Why would they accept this? If the SAT was somehow banned from being taken in Florida, wouldn't all Florida students go test optional as that's where the direction of college admissions is going?

It's hard to see any of those schools accepting such a test. And I can see students who try to use it suing for "religious discrimination" when these schools decline to accept the score.

[jojoju1998]

There are no such things as "Judeo-Christian values". That's just a phrase made up by evangelical Christians to push Christian theology without sounding as if they are excluding Judaism, but are clearly excluding other religions. In reality conservatives are all about Christianity only as ruling doctrine.

This comes as the distrust between Florida's education and the collegeboard increases, I wouldn't be surprised if Florida bans the taking of the SAT in the upcoming years and replaces it with this exam. There will likely be a movement to get elite schools like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to accept the score of this exam as part of the college application process.

Why would they accept this? If the SAT was somehow banned from being taken in Florida, wouldn't all Florida students go test optional as that's where the direction of college admissions is going?

It's hard to see any of those schools accepting such a test. And I can see students who try to use it suing for "religious discrimination" when these schools decline to accept the score.

Irony is that actual Christian teachings.... well... they don't jive that well with republican policies.


https://www.commondreams.org/news/2013/01/01/pope-benedict-slams-capitalism-economic-inequality

" Pope Benedict XVI said in his New Year's peace message today that the world was under threat from unbridled capitalism.
The pope said "hotbeds of tension and confrontation caused by the growing inequality between rich and poor and the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mentality also expressed by unregulated financial capitalism.""


This is Pope Benedict, a guy who in other areas, is known as a staunch conservative.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Here is the list of authors they draw from.  https://www.cltexam.com/tests/authors/
It's a fairly diverse crowd, though it could be more so.  At least it would make for a more interesting test experience than most of the readings for the SAT.

[7,052,770]

Everyone start calling the clit exam and Republicans will quickly ban it.

[Aurelius2]

When Conservatives learn that " Western " Civilization gave us the Protestant Reformation, Liberalism, the French Revolution, Marxism, and the modern nation state we now know today.

American conservatives tend to be big fans of the Protestant Reformation. Crazy thought, I know! European throne-and-altar conservatism has never been strong in America and never will be. Attacking American conservatism from a position of Catholic doctrine in a "look what this leads to lmao" sense makes no sense because most Americans are not Catholic and do not particularly care about Catholic social teaching. Even looking just at American Catholics, many (if not most?) are deeply culturally Protestant, as you would expect in a historically Protestant country.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

How many colleges and universities outside Florida will accept this as an entrance qualification? I’d bet the number will be very small.

If Florida schools no longer offer the SAT or ACT for students to take, then outside colleges may have to accept it otherwise they would be punishing Florida students.

This comes as the distrust between Florida's education and the collegeboard increases, I wouldn't be surprised if Florida bans the taking of the SAT in the upcoming years and replaces it with this exam. There will likely be a movement to get elite schools like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to accept the score of this exam as part of the college application process.

Why would they accept this? If the SAT was somehow banned from being taken in Florida, wouldn't all Florida students go test optional as that's where the direction of college admissions is going?

Because you are still denying them the opportunity to use their test score to improve their application. Test optional is not the same as test blind, so whereas a kid from Connecticut can brag about their 1600 SAT score to increase their odds at Harvard, someone from Florida will be out of luck in that regard.

[Benjamin Frank]

Not emphasized in what's mentioned in that excerpt but there is a strain of conservative 'intellectuals' who are experts/buffs/academics in Ancient Greek and Roman literature/history/philosophy.

I'm not toally sure where this fascination comes from as it goes against the general 'anti academic' bent of even many conservative 'intellectuals' but it leads into a fascination with 'western' values, and, I believe, not the other way around.

" the far-right relies on this construct of Western civilization, which for them means white civilization and culture. So they craft a narrative that begins with Greece and Rome and then continues into the medieval period up through the emergence of modern Europe."


https://www.vox.com/2019/11/6/20919221/alt-right-history-greece-rome-donna-zuckerberg

I could be wrong, but I think this goes back to before the far-right, not that the likes of the John Birch Society didn't exist back in the 1950s, butI believe, for instance, William F Buckley was educated in 'the classics.'

There are always evolving strains, but it's a mistake to believe these things are new.

Again, not that the far right wasn't around then, but I was briefly a member of some largely right wing political board in the early 2000s that was headed by a person with the nickname Tacitus.

It was mainstream right wing at the time, but that meant for them supporting tax cuts for the wealthy and supporting the second Iraq War.

[DrScholl]

There are no such things as "Judeo-Christian values". That's just a phrase made up by evangelical Christians to push Christian theology without sounding as if they are excluding Judaism, but are clearly excluding other religions. In reality conservatives are all about Christianity only as ruling doctrine.

This comes as the distrust between Florida's education and the collegeboard increases, I wouldn't be surprised if Florida bans the taking of the SAT in the upcoming years and replaces it with this exam. There will likely be a movement to get elite schools like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to accept the score of this exam as part of the college application process.

Why would they accept this? If the SAT was somehow banned from being taken in Florida, wouldn't all Florida students go test optional as that's where the direction of college admissions is going?

It's hard to see any of those schools accepting such a test. And I can see students who try to use it suing for "religious discrimination" when these schools decline to accept the score.

Irony is that actual Christian teachings.... well... they don't jive that well with republican policies.


https://www.commondreams.org/news/2013/01/01/pope-benedict-slams-capitalism-economic-inequality

" Pope Benedict XVI said in his New Year's peace message today that the world was under threat from unbridled capitalism.
The pope said "hotbeds of tension and confrontation caused by the growing inequality between rich and poor and the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mentality also expressed by unregulated financial capitalism.""


This is Pope Benedict, a guy who in other areas, is known as a staunch conservative.

Republicans tend to ignore that part of Christian teachings. Republicans are about the prosperity gospel.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

If Florida schools no longer offer the SAT or ACT for students to take, then outside colleges may have to accept it otherwise they would be punishing Florida students.

And? Non-Florida colleges and universities don't have to accept Florida students.

[Aurelius2]

When Conservatives learn that " Western " Civilization gave us the Protestant Reformation, Liberalism, the French Revolution, Marxism, and the modern nation state we now know today.

American conservatives tend to be big fans of the Protestant Reformation. Crazy thought, I know! European throne-and-altar conservatism has never been strong in America and never will be. Attacking it from a position of Catholic doctrine makes no sense because most Americans are not Catholic (and many American Catholics are culturally Protestant anyway) and do not particularly care about Catholic social teaching.

So why are American Conservatives allying themselves with people like Bishop Robert Barron ? Ross Douthat ? Adrian Vermuele ?


Look at Bishop Barron's interviews with Ben Sharpiro, he essentially proposes that the type of Judeo Christian Values rhetoric that this OP shared if that makes sense.


American conservatives for better or worse, are looking increasingly at European Integralism for inspiration.

The national review and people like Mike Pence try to deny it; but American Conservativism is increasingly more like Europe's conservative parties than you might want to admit.

The usage of Western Society, Judeo Christian Values, sound alot like... Giorgia Meloni. Viktor Orban. More so than say Ronald Reagan.

American conservatives are not allying themselves with Adrian Vermeule, and a handful of twitter-poisoned freaks do not change that fact. I don't know who Robert Barron is, nor do I particularly care to know. Douthat is not remotely an integralist. I can name two members of congress who are even the slightest bit influenced by integralist-adjacent thought, out of something like 260 congressional Republicans in total. And this is a movement that has always been much stronger in the small, cloistered conservative intellectual elite than among the masses. I guarantee you that 99% of normie Republicans have never heard of it and the vast majority would find it repulsive.

Reagan talked about "Judeo-Christian values" all the damn time. It was one of his stock phrases. This goes back in American conservatism since forever, *especially* in the most Protestant-inflected submovements. Historically it has been the Protestants, not the Catholics, who have been the (relative) philosemites.

[Aurelius2]

There are no such things as "Judeo-Christian values". That's just a phrase made up by evangelical Christians to push Christian theology without sounding as if they are excluding Judaism, but are clearly excluding other religions. In reality conservatives are all about Christianity only as ruling doctrine.

This comes as the distrust between Florida's education and the collegeboard increases, I wouldn't be surprised if Florida bans the taking of the SAT in the upcoming years and replaces it with this exam. There will likely be a movement to get elite schools like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to accept the score of this exam as part of the college application process.

Why would they accept this? If the SAT was somehow banned from being taken in Florida, wouldn't all Florida students go test optional as that's where the direction of college admissions is going?

It's hard to see any of those schools accepting such a test. And I can see students who try to use it suing for "religious discrimination" when these schools decline to accept the score.

Irony is that actual Christian teachings.... well... they don't jive that well with republican policies.


https://www.commondreams.org/news/2013/01/01/pope-benedict-slams-capitalism-economic-inequality

" Pope Benedict XVI said in his New Year's peace message today that the world was under threat from unbridled capitalism.
The pope said "hotbeds of tension and confrontation caused by the growing inequality between rich and poor and the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mentality also expressed by unregulated financial capitalism.""


This is Pope Benedict, a guy who in other areas, is known as a staunch conservative.

You realize there are many Christian churches with widely variant teachings, yes? Like I keep saying, America is a historically and culturally protestant country, and quoting the pope at conservatives to try and make them look like hypocrites accomplishes nothing when many of them fervently reject the legitimacy of the Pope in the first place. This is not Spain or France or Poland or Italy.

I get you are Catholic and thus of course see the Pope as an important figure (to say the least). I am not disputing the relevance of his teachings to you. What I am saying is that using papal teachings to try and label non-Catholics as hypocrites makes no sense because they put no importance on papal teachings in the first place.

[DrScholl]

There are no such things as "Judeo-Christian values". That's just a phrase made up by evangelical Christians to push Christian theology without sounding as if they are excluding Judaism, but are clearly excluding other religions. In reality conservatives are all about Christianity only as ruling doctrine.

This comes as the distrust between Florida's education and the collegeboard increases, I wouldn't be surprised if Florida bans the taking of the SAT in the upcoming years and replaces it with this exam. There will likely be a movement to get elite schools like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to accept the score of this exam as part of the college application process.

Why would they accept this? If the SAT was somehow banned from being taken in Florida, wouldn't all Florida students go test optional as that's where the direction of college admissions is going?

It's hard to see any of those schools accepting such a test. And I can see students who try to use it suing for "religious discrimination" when these schools decline to accept the score.

Irony is that actual Christian teachings.... well... they don't jive that well with republican policies.


https://www.commondreams.org/news/2013/01/01/pope-benedict-slams-capitalism-economic-inequality

" Pope Benedict XVI said in his New Year's peace message today that the world was under threat from unbridled capitalism.
The pope said "hotbeds of tension and confrontation caused by the growing inequality between rich and poor and the prevalence of a selfish and individualistic mentality also expressed by unregulated financial capitalism.""


This is Pope Benedict, a guy who in other areas, is known as a staunch conservative.

You realize there are many Christian churches with widely variant teachings, yes? Like I keep saying, America is a historically and culturally protestant country, and quoting the pope at conservatives to try and make them look like hypocrites accomplishes nothing when many of them fervently reject the legitimacy of the Pope in the first place. This is not Spain or France or Poland or Italy.

I get you are Catholic and thus of course see the Pope as an important figure (to say the least). I am not disputing the relevance of his teachings to you. What I am saying is that using papal teachings to try and label non-Catholics as hypocrites makes no sense because they put no importance on papal teachings in the first place.

Even outside of Catholicism the actual word does line up closer to what Benedict was saying. As I said, Republicans are more on the side of the prosperity gospel. And I'll add that some don't know the actual teachings, because I read an article where a pastor stated that congregants were calling the concept of turning the other cheek "liberal doctrine".

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

When Conservatives learn that " Western " Civilization gave us the Protestant Reformation, Liberalism, the French Revolution, Marxism, and the modern nation state we now know today.

American conservatives tend to be big fans of the Protestant Reformation. Crazy thought, I know! European throne-and-altar conservatism has never been strong in America and never will be. Attacking it from a position of Catholic doctrine makes no sense because most Americans are not Catholic (and many American Catholics are culturally Protestant anyway) and do not particularly care about Catholic social teaching.

So why are American Conservatives allying themselves with people like Bishop Robert Barron ? Ross Douthat ? Adrian Vermuele ?


Look at Bishop Barron's interviews with Ben Sharpiro, he essentially proposes that the type of Judeo Christian Values rhetoric that this OP shared if that makes sense.


American conservatives for better or worse, are looking increasingly at European Integralism for inspiration.

The national review and people like Mike Pence try to deny it; but American Conservativism is increasingly more like Europe's conservative parties than you might want to admit.

The usage of Western Society, Judeo Christian Values, sound alot like... Giorgia Meloni. Viktor Orban. More so than say Ronald Reagan.

American conservatives are not allying themselves with Adrian Vermeule, and a handful of twitter-poisoned freaks do not change that fact. I don't know who Robert Barron is, nor do I particularly care to know. Douthat is not remotely an integralist. I can name two members of congress who are even the slightest bit influenced by integralist-adjacent thought, out of something like 260 congressional Republicans in total. And this is a movement that has always been much stronger in the small, cloistered conservative intellectual elite than among the masses. I guarantee you that 99% of normie Republicans have never heard of it and the vast majority would find it repulsive.

Reagan talked about "Judeo-Christian values" all the damn time. It was one of his stock phrases. This goes back in American conservatism since forever, *especially* in the most Protestant-inflected submovements. Historically it has been the Protestants, not the Catholics, who have been the (relative) philosemites.

"Judeo-Christian" mainly goes back to the post-WW2 era. Late 40s to early 60s was a very religious time in America by either historical or contemporary standards. There was a desire that was very mainstream to forge a national religious identity that would be inclusive of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews alike, while still respecting differences.

[Alben Barkley]

DeSantis focuses on some weird s--t down there.

[MaxQue]

How many colleges and universities outside Florida will accept this as an entrance qualification? I’d bet the number will be very small.

If Florida schools no longer offer the SAT or ACT for students to take, then outside colleges may have to accept it otherwise they would be punishing Florida students.

This comes as the distrust between Florida's education and the collegeboard increases, I wouldn't be surprised if Florida bans the taking of the SAT in the upcoming years and replaces it with this exam. There will likely be a movement to get elite schools like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to accept the score of this exam as part of the college application process.

Why would they accept this? If the SAT was somehow banned from being taken in Florida, wouldn't all Florida students go test optional as that's where the direction of college admissions is going?

Because you are still denying them the opportunity to use their test score to improve their application. Test optional is not the same as test blind, so whereas a kid from Connecticut can brag about their 1600 SAT score to increase their odds at Harvard, someone from Florida will be out of luck in that regard.

So, Harvard would say it's not their fault and that the student shouldn't sue them, but the Floridian government.