July 31, 2026
Several states now require their public colleges to accept the CLT as a college admissions exam.
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A USA Today report found that struggling high schoolers in Florida are taking the Classic Learning Test, a K–12 academic progress exam and alternative to the SAT and ACT that has been embraced by conservatives, to graduate. Students unable to pass the state’s algebra and English exams or score high enough on the SAT or ACT instead are opting to take the CLT.
Mathematics education experts who evaluated the test said the CLT’s math section had a higher concentration of middle school–level math than the SAT or the ACT. Officials in at least nine Florida school districts attributed the exam to increased graduation rates since the test was introduced in 2023. Leesa Crescenzi, the former head of the math department for the Hillsborough County School District in Tampa, told USA Today that students had discovered there were enough prealgebra questions on the test that they could pass simply by answering the easy questions and then selecting B for all the remaining questions.
