U.S. military academies plan to accept the Christian Right’s inferior alternative to the SAT

By embracing the Classic Learning Test, service academies would be prioritizing politics over competence

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Beginning in 2027, America’s military academies will begin accepting standardized test results from the Classic Learning Test (CLT), according to POLITICO’s Sophia Cai. It’s the latest example of the government lowering its standards to appease conservative Christians.

Congratulations, you found it! (Screenshot via YouTube)

CLT scores will be allowed as an alternative to the more traditional SAT or ACT tests. That may seem relatively harmless at a time when many colleges are shifting away from them altogether, but this isn’t really about the exams. The CLT is the preferred test used for admission in many private Christian schools because it’s widely seen by conservatives as anti-”woke” because it emphasizes “deep comprehension of classical texts.” (In other words, the test isn’t going to make you read excerpts from—and then answer questions about—modern books or op-eds or anything that might challenge your thinking.)

The problem with the CLT is that there’s very little evidence it’s a good indicator of college preparedness. The test, which launched in 2015, has only been taken by about a hundred thousand students total as of 2023. By comparison, nearly 2 million students took the SAT and 1.4 million took the ACT in 2024 alone. Both of those latter tests are constantly revised and updated. While the SAT and ACT (and standardized tests in general) receive plenty of well-deserved criticism, there’s plenty of evidence that those exams help predict academic success in college. That’s not the case for CLT. (How could it be? Not many students have taken it!)

Furthermore, 85% of the students who’ve taken the CLT are white and 99% of test-takers attend private schools or charter schools or are home-schooled (as of 2019). The “C” may as well stand for “Christian.” It’s the sort of test you create for students who come from a conservative Christian background but don’t have the academic chops to compete on a level playing field against stronger students who attend public schools. If those kids were generally getting excellent scores on the SAT and ACT, the CLT would be unnecessary.

In recent years, though, the CLT has become the test of choice for several conservative Christian colleges (like Michigan’s Hillsdale College) while the SAT has become a bogeyman for conservatives because it’s run by the College Board, which they see as too liberal. (The College Board also oversees Advanced Placement testing.) The CLT’s Board of Academic Advisors reads like a laundry list of faith-based school leaders, podcast hosts (two of them!), conservative activists (e.g. Christopher Rufo), and (hey why not) Cornel West.

In some ways, the CLT looks very familiar, with sections devoted to math, writing, and verbal reasoning. But the topics are much more narrow—and much more religious. It highlights the “centrality of the Western tradition” at the expense of all other ones, which means there’s a preference for works that are white, Western European, and Judeo-Christian. If you think Dead White Guys represent the pinnacle of education and modern writers who cover a wider range of topics can be ignored, this is the test for you.

Like so much of the output from the conservative Christian world, it’s a shittier version of something that already exists. It’s honestly shocking that Kevin Sorbo isn’t the CLT’s spokesperson.

Consider a sample passage from the exam, featuring a section from St. Teresa of Ávila’s The Way of Perfection. While that passage could appear on the SAT, the SAT has a much deeper well of options because they’re not limiting the exam to certain kinds of writing. The CLT, however, emphasizes faith-based works and what they call the “classics.”

The questions aren’t exactly tough to figure out, either. A writer for Mother Jones took a practice CLT test in 2023 and showed how one question could be answered without even reading the passage.

… For example, here’s a question about the passage from Plato:

According to Passage 1, a man can minimize the lawless wild-beast nature inside of him by:

A) getting enough sleep.

B) accepting his own corruption.

C) practicing his powers of rationality.

D) fighting against tyranny.

Right off the bat, we eliminated D (didn’t quite make sense) and A (didn’t seem…relevant to Plato’s interests?). So that left B and C. Practicing rationality seemed a more practical approach to taming your inner lawless beast than accepting your own corruption—whatever that meant. So C was our choice—and we were right! That was even without referring back to the text.

(It’s very reminiscent of the Accelerated Christian Education curriculum in that way.)

The College Board (which, again, oversees the SAT) also said the CLT’s questions leave a lot to be desired:

In reviewing a published CLT practice test, we found that 25% of questions were below high school grade level. For example, statistical concepts are not tested on the CLT. As a result, scoring very well on the CLT may not necessarily indicate an equally high score on the SAT, which is aligned to high school grade levels represented in state standards.

Despite those very serious concerns, the Republican administration wants to use the CLT as an acceptable alternative to the SAT/ACT anyway beginning in 2027.

According to the internal emails, the U.S. military academies by Oct. 1 plan to update all public-facing websites accessible to prospective students reflecting the new option. They will also train admissions staff, liaison officers, congressional offices and volunteers involved with admissions on the addition of CLT in advance of the 2027 admissions cycle.

…

“By allowing young Americans to apply to the U.S. Service Academies with the CLT, these institutions will have the opportunity to welcome students who have taken a standardized test rooted in rigor, logical thinking, and a deep understanding of the classic and historical texts that made America great,” [CLT co-founder and CEO Jeremy Wayne] Tate said in a statement to POLITICO.

Maybe you believe this doesn’t really matter. It’s not like students remember the passages on their standardized tests. Plus, the questions (at least in theory) are about whether you can make sense of the writing, not about the beliefs themselves, right?

Yet consider how students would have to prepare for the exam.

If red states like Florida (where the CLT has been pushed for years by Ron DeSantis and his Republican administration) and homeschooling parents know the CLT will be acceptable for military academics, educators may feel pressured to put more religious essays and excerpts in front of students in order to give them a better feel for what they may come across.

That’s what this is really about. It’s a way to shove religion in schools without explicitly endorsing a specific brand of Christian beliefs. It’s not that the CLT directly promotes religion, but it indirectly sends the message that understanding religious writing—at the expense of modern essays and a wider array of challenging ideas—can be beneficial.

It also limits the options of where high school students who take the exam can go to college since most schools—typically, the ones with a sterling reputation—don’t take the CLT seriously.

The irony is that there is an alternative for these military academics if they don’t want to accept standardized test scores: Just reject them entirely and emphasize personal statements, recommendation letters, high school academics, extra-curriculars, and interviews.

But the fact remains that if students have to take a standardized test, they’re better off taking one of the known, battle-tested exams, despite their flaws, rather than the faith-promoting alternative that only exists because conservatives would rather create their own academic ecosystem than function in the same one as everyone else.

This whole charade is another example of the steady creep of sectarian politics into institutions that once demanded the highest levels of intellectual and civic discipline. The Republican administration is signaling that loyalty to ideology matters more than competence, diversity of thought, or actual preparation. It’s yet another concession to a movement that has no interest in competing fairly in the marketplace of ideas, preferring instead to warp the rules to shield its followers from rigor and accountability.

It’s bad enough when that’s happening in colleges generally, but this is now bleeding into the military. We’re normalizing conservative mediocrity under the guise of “tradition” and “values.” By indulging right-wing Christians, this administration isn’t just lowering the bar; it’s weaponizing education, ensuring the next generation of military leaders are less informed, less capable, and more ideologically identical. It’s the worst possible way to run our service academies.

One other note: Indiana Congressman Jim Banks (R-IN) introduced a bill in May that would mandate the CLT’s acceptance in all service academies, like West Point and the Naval Academy. It would also force schools run by the government—like overseas schools and those on military bases—to administer the CLT. That bill hasn’t made it out of committee yet.

That won’t matter, though, if this new Pentagon policy is enacted. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is all for it. In May, he called the CLT the “gold standard.”

(Portions of this article were published earlier)

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