Right-wing zealots force 'home-schooler' admissions test onto colleges

Indystar reports Indiana’s Gov. Mike Braun has signed a new bill forcing state colleges and universities to include a “classics-based” examination embraced by religious colleges in Republican states.

For decades, the ACT and the SAT have been the gatekeepers and the standard-bearer of college admissions to measure a student's aptitude in core subjects like math, science and reading. But proponents said the test “would better assess students who received a classical education, typically offered to homeschooled students or at private or charter classical schools,” according to the IndyStar.

The newly required Classical Learning Test aims to promote the "Western intellectual tradition" that right-wing supporters claim has been abandoned by existing standardized tests.

The change stems from a legislative bill that also “requires schools to teach a 2000s-era anti-poverty theory involving waiting until marriage to have kids as part of schools' good citizenship instruction,” reports IndyStar. “It passed mostly along party lines amid criticism that the CLT could disadvantage students who are less accustomed to Western ideas.”

"It has baked-in prejudices that would make students who come from less diverse backgrounds appear to have done better than students from more diverse backgrounds," said Joel Hand, a lobbyist for the American Federation of Teachers for Indiana, during Senate committee testimony in January.

Classic Learning Test creator Jeremy Tate applauded the bill's passage in Indiana in an X post Feb. 24.

“While Tate has said the test is not partisan, his company's expansive Board of Academic Advisors include administrators from religious colleges and right-wing figures like Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation and PragerU CEO Marissa Streit,” reports IndyStar. “It's also been promoted by Sen. Jim Banks, who called it the "standard for academic excellence."

PragerU is not a university, but a conservative nonprofit known for producing wildly inaccurate educational videos. One PragerU video from its history series depicts abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass arguing that the founders’ decision not to abolish U.S. slavery was worth it because it helped convince the Southern colonies to join the Union.

“Our system is wonderful, and the Constitution is a glorious liberty document. We just need to convince enough Americans to be true to it,” the video depicts Douglass saying.

Teachers' unions and academics also doubt the value of the Classic Learning Test considering its concepts and biased arguments.