Latest / Virtuous Leaders with Dr. Johann D'Souza / Ep.105 - Jeremy Tate on How One Test Is Reclaiming American Education | CLT | Classical Learning Test | Western Tradition

Transcript

Ep.105 - Jeremy Tate on How One Test Is Reclaiming American Education | CLT | Classical Learning Test | Western Tradition · Virtuous Leaders with Dr. Johann D'Souza

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  What we found is that College born ACT, they don't really have
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  a clear mission, right? What is their vision for
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  American education? They kind of just view education
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  is like credentialing. This is Virtuous Leaders, the
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  podcast for based Catholics who will speak truth, do good or die
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  trying. Here's the show.
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  You are the founder and CEO of the Classical Learning Test.
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  What? What is that exactly, Jeremy?
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  That's great. Yeah.
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  Classic learning test. We're an alternative to the SAT
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  and ACT board about actually 10 years ago.
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  So we launched in the fall of 2015 really out of a conviction
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  of the way the College Board, which is the big empire that
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  owns the AP courses, the AP curriculum, the AP test, and
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  also the SAT and the PSAT. And they end up being the
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  biggest driver of curriculum. And the organization really does
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  to a large extent, censor almost, you know, the Catholic,
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  Christian, Western intellectual tradition.
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  What that means is students that are taking classes like AP Lit
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  or Lang or APUS history or AP World, they're getting a really
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  distorted view either of history or literature.
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  So what we want to do is, you know, instead of having a, you
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  know, an organization that is, is, is pushing schools, Catholic
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  schools, Christian schools away from the intellectual tradition
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  that they should be really feasting on.
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  We we want to have an organization that pushes them
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  back towards that instead. You you just said that this is
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  it called college prep at it the College Board.
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  Yeah, the College Board. Yeah, College Board is the
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  single most influential organization really in American
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  education. But the way you described it
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  sounds like a total scam. So they influence who gets into
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  college and also what you study in college.
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  Well, they, they influence, so they, they have the PSAT, the
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  SAT and the AP courses. And so we are one of the things
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  I think a lot of people agree with within the big education
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  world is that inevitably tests end up driving curriculum in a
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  pretty powerful way. What, what gets tested gets
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  taught. And so by being the test, it
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  ends up shaping curriculum as well.
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  But then even more directly with the AP courses, you know,
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  schools are having to send the College Board their syllabi and
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  their courses for approval. So they really do shape
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  curriculum, academic focus at the high school level precisely
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  because they've been the gateway to college and universities for
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  sure. And so that's what we're seeing
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  this big problem. And you know, I think it's, it's
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  this one kind of seemingly random thing, you know, where if
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  you can can change the college entrance exam, you can really
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  reorient education around that. Do you know anything about the
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  history or motivation behind College Board?
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  I presume that some that has so much influence is not a money
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  making machine, but it's actually for the well-being of
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  the students. You know, College Board has been
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  around a long time. It's been around since 1899.
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  It would happen then was you had the gathering of a number of Ivy
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  League institutions. They met at Columbia and as well
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  as some elite prep schools, and they got together to kind of
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  unify admission standards to these top colleges.
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  And so they formed this new organization called the College
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  Board. And they went and launched the
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  SAT in 1926. And the SAT was kind of the only
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  game around until 1959. And in 1959, the ACT launches an
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  alternative to the SAT. And they launched with a really
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  particular argument. They said, you know, what the
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  SAT is doing isn't really fair. The SAT it just measures
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  cognitive ability and measures on, you know, on potential.
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  It doesn't measure you on what you know.
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  And so they launch with what's called an achievement test.
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  And, you know, a lot of people heard AC TS message and they
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  said, yeah, it's that's right. You know, students shouldn't be,
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  you know, evaluated on their aptitude or their innate kind of
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  cognitive ability. Instead, they should be measured
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  on what they're taught in the classroom.
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  The problems, though, is when you ask the question, well,
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  which classroom are we talking about here?
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  Are we talking about a public school of a Jewish day school, a
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  Montessori school, a Catholic school, the classical Christian
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  School? And it became very, very clear
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  that what they were talking about really was only a public
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  school. And in 2015, the SAT and ACT
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  aligned with the Common Core standards.
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  And when they did this, it really, really made a lot of
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  people upset. And CLT launch is an option to
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  fill that gap. How does CLT fill that gap?
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  Yeah, I think that's a great question.
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  I think by by providing a an alternative that really reflects
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  the best in the Western Christian Catholic intellectual
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  tradition, you know. And So what what does it mean to
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  actually be educated? Well, we think part of what it
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  means is that you're able to grapple with the best of the
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  best of which has been thought and said.
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  So the students ability to pick up Aristotle, to pick up Saint
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  Augustine or Dante, right? That and if they're able to
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  understand those kinds of dense thinkers and text, that's what
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  it means to be educated coming out of high school.
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  And so that's what we're evaluating on the CLT.
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  How successful do you think that mission has been in terms of
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  writing an alternative to the College Board?
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  Yeah, yeah. I think more and more, I mean
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  the College Board is it's been around 125 years.
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  It's a bit, it's a one point $3 billion, you know, annual
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  revenue company. It impacts almost every high
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  school in the country. Most high schools are just a
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  bunch of AP courses, right? So what we've done in the 1st 10
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  years, we've, you know, successfully launched an
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  alternative to the SAT and the PSAT.
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  And what we're going to be doing in the next 10 years is
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  launching an alternative to AP to their Advanced Placement
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  courses. And with that be be also given
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  for college credit? Or is that not part of your your
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  aim? Yeah, it's going to be given for
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  college credit as well. That's a great question.
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  So we're right now what we're doing is everyday meeting with
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  colleges and universities and making sure that they're going
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  to tie credit to CLT and during courses in the same way they tie
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  credit to College Boards, AP courses.
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  OK, so you know, one problem with facing the BM moth is you
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  have less resources, less funding.
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  How? How have you proven so
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  successful in fighting or fighting alternative to the
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  College Board? Yeah, it's fascinating.
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  We kind of every industry to see the way that, you know, you can
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  have big kind of disruption from kind of new, new people in town
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  that don't have the resources, don't have the funding, don't
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  have the size. You know, you would think it
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  would be impossible for startups to break into a bunch of
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  different sectors. But what we found is that
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  College Board and ACT, they don't really have a clear
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  mission, right? What is their vision for
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  American education? They kind of just view education
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  is like credentialing. If you go into most public
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  schools and you ask the students, you know, what are we
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  doing here? What's the purpose of education?
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  Most students are going to tell you so you get a better job,
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  right? That's the most common answer.
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  And that's a really impoverished view of education, right?
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  That it's just about becoming a cog in a big economic wheel,
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  right? A much more ennobling, richer,
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  deeper, older vision for education is that it's about the
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  cultivation of virtue, right? It's about growing in wisdom.
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  And so I think we've been able to challenge the College Board
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  primarily by having a better vision for what education even
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  ends, right? What we call the the goal or the
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  tell us, right. And AI is introducing, you know,
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  really profound disruption to this arena right now.
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  And I think it's forcing a conversation that makes people
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  think back about first principles.
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  How did we get here? What is education?
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  Is that? How can you have education aimed
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  at jobs training when we don't even know what the jobs are
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  going to be in five or ten years?
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  One thing I'd like to ask about is how, from an entrepreneurial
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  standpoint, did you get to where you are?
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  What are some? Because people can have good
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  ideas and good intentions, but if they don't have the business
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  savvy, they're not going to be able to put those into practice.
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  So what made you successful in that regard?
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  You like the CLT story is really tribute to God's Providence.
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  I mean, it should not have worked.
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  I'm amazed that it has worked and I'm surprised it had work.
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  I, I told our initial investor, he said give me a percentage
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  chance that this blacks will work.
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  Does it seem like a crazy Ed 20% at that That does work.
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  I think it's going to be more so I think he's being one, not
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  putting, not giving up, taking big defeats, getting backed up.
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  You're back at it again. You know, we've had a lot of low
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  points in the CLT, Jerry. We're really simply just
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  refusing to learning for this getting and especially bringing
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  great and I'm joking. If I didn't start sloppy, I
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  couldn't get a job here because it is all the most acceptable
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  hills down the university of that's, you know, amazing,
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  amazing that are passionate and 3rd and yeah, we're having we're
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  having a lot of fun growth on the kind of the rooting at the C
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  plus get David over David and block and and you know,
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  inevitably David David is going to win.
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  Yeah big puffed up and think you can't be taken down.
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  And that's when you're roller and the College Board board is
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  normal and we've got friends on the inside that have told us the
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  College Board is is very much great of CLP swarms out.
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  We're like, you know, we we're so small compared to that, but
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  they they don't have a compelling vision for education
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  and they don't have they don't have any grassroots enthusiasm.
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  CLT is a ton of grassroots, supportive people who love what
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  we're doing, and they want to see us just dislodge the
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  behemoths. When I think about the American
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  Empire, to me it's still an open question as to whether it will
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  be sustainable in the near future, like let's say 100 years
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  timeline. What what do you think about
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  that, particularly in regards to the state of government
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  education? Are we going to be able to
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  uproot it root and branch, as Kevin Roberts has has cry, has
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  hoped for, Or are we going to be able to fall under the weight of
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  its own incompetence over time? Yeah, You know, I think you let
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  parents vote with their feet hair.
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  It's what, what, what what is best for their children.
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  And look wherever there's options for classical schools.
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  I mean, almost every classical charter school.
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  And it's it's got a waiting list bigger than the entire
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  enrollment of the whole school. I mean, they cannot launch these
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  schools fast enough. And so I think there's an exodus
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  happening right now. And I think that the word is
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  getting out. I mean, you.
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  The main thing is this, though, and I don't want to bash public
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  schools and I went to public school, but look, if you compare
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  the typical graduate from a classical charter school or
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  classical Christian School or one of these faithfully Catholic
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  schools, you compare those graduates to the graduates from
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  the typical American public schools.
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  I mean, it is night and day difference.
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  There is an eloquence, there's a refinement of maturity and
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  ability to speak to adults. I mean, these are the kinds of
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  people that we want, you know, to be our next doctors and
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  lawyers and states, men and women.
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  And so, yeah, I think the secret is out with a classical
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  education is amazing. And I'm, I'm very excited about
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  the future. So parents, educators listening
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  to this, what can they do to get involved?
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  Yeah, definitely. You know, we, we, we need all
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  the help that we can get. We need all the connections that
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  we can get. Yeah, a lot of the CLT story
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  right now is trying to move things on the legislative level,
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  right? The SAT and the ACT are deeply
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  embedded in the state policy. You know, if you're in a place
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  like Tennessee, the Hope scholarship means everything.
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  You know, it's going to dramatically impact what you're
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  actually paying for college. But it's only tied to the SAT
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  and ACT. And, you know, even though we've
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  got a lot of people in Tennessee who love what we're doing, the
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  ACT sends out a big army of lobbyists and they stop us.
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  And they've done that a number of Times Now.
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  So when we have, but when we have support and enthusiasm
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  from, you know, folks at the highest levels of government and
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  they say, look, we're not going to let this get derailed because
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  ACT can pay for some lobbyists. I think that's where we're going
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  to make some real progress. What's your involvement with the
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  Trump administration? You know, no direct involvement.
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  We we recently had the CLT adopted by the US Naval Academy
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  West Point. The Air Force Academy has just
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  been absolutely. Incredible.
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  Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much.
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  Yeah. Pete Hegseth.
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  They wrote about CLT specifically in his book, his
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  national bestseller, The Battle for the American Mind.
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  He wrote that with David Goodwin, who's a dear friend of
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  CLTS. And in that book, Pete Hegseth
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  and David Goodwin, they call for getting going away from the SAT,
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  which is totally compromised, and replacing it with the CLT.
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  And, you know, he was a man of his word.
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  We know he he that was a top priority for him when he became
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  Secretary of Defense. Impressive.
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  Do you want to close us with some a big win that you
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  experience? I mean that that's definitely
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  one of them, or just a sign of hope for the audience that tend
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  to be more kind of black pill. But maybe you can give us some
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  victories. Yeah, this fast Free was really
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  exciting. And so we had, we had a 2023
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  governor, Governor DeSantis was the first one to really, really
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  get behind CLT. And so in the state of Florida,
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  they tied CLT to Bright futures to graduation requirements,
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  which is very exciting. But then this past year, we had
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  a number of states follow suited Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana,
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  Texas. So really, you know, we're we're
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  people are realizing there's a lot at stake here.
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  I mean, the main way that we transmit our culture, the things
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  we value most is through education.
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  And our schools are no longer doing the work they ought to be
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  doing, passing on this beautiful, wonderful
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  intellectual inheritance. But we're reclaiming it.
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  We're having a lot of fun doing it.
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  Thanks so much, Jerry. John, thanks for having me home.
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  Thanks for listening. Please like, subscribe and share
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  with your friends. See you next time.