CLT Founder Escalates Social Media War on College Board

Jeremy Tate, founder and chief executive officer of the conservative-coded Classic Learning Test, has been posting a lot on social media.

His target has often been a competitor in the standardized test world: College Board, which administers the SAT. Among many other things, he’s denounced College Board CEO David Coleman for how much he’s paid for leading a nonprofit—more than $2.3 million in 2024, according to the latest available IRS form.

On Monday, he posted a photo of Coleman on LinkedIn and X, called him “the single most influential person in American education,” and quoted him praising a Chinese government–affiliated education organization called Hanban in 2014. (Coleman, per The Wall Street Journal, said, “Hanban is just like the sun. It lights the path to develop Chinese teaching in the U.S. The College Board is the moon. I am so honored to reflect the light that we’ve gotten from Hanban.”)

“And we wonder why young people think communism is awesome,” Tate wrote.

But, a week ago, Tate published a different kind of attack on College Board: “a public warning,” as he put it. He accused College Board of using a public records request to try to stop the spread of his test and threatened a multistate Freedom of Information Act war of retaliation.

“Our legal team has now had to devote time and resources to responding to the public-records request you submitted in Texas,” Tate wrote. “You are, of course, entitled to make such requests. But understand that the same public-records laws are equally available to us. For everyone [sic] of these you throw at us we will throw five back at you. I can’t imagine what we could uncover from the decades College Board has spent wining and dining elected officials. Keep playing dirty and it will all be exposed. All of it.”

“CLT has competed in the marketplace openly and fairly and clearly we are winning,” Tate wrote, adding that “we welcome truly vigorous competition. Because those of us who do not live in comi-land know that competition benefits the students we exist to serve.”

However, Massie Ritsch, executive director of media relations for College Board, told Inside Higher Ed in an email that “College Board has not filed records requests in Texas re: CLT and has not directed anyone working on our behalf to do so.” And the person who a CLT lobbyist said filed the request—Casey Claiborne, a former broadcast journalist—told Inside Higher Ed that, while he filed it, he didn’t do so for College Board.

“Just trying to see if there’s a story there,” Claiborne said in a message.

Tate told Inside Higher Ed on Monday, “We don’t have hard, technical” proof that College Board filed the public records request. But, he said, “We’ve got friends who work for the College Board” and referenced people “in the know” who have strong suspicions. He said he’s “99 percent” sure it was College Board.

“They’re pathological liars,” Tate said of College Board. Tate’s company is objecting to the release of some of the information demanded in the public records request.

John Colyandro, a Texas lobbyist representing CLT, provided documents showing that the request was submitted to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and that the board itself has asked the state attorney general whether it can withhold some information.

Colyandro also provided a copy of what he said was the records request itself—the Texas board didn’t provide a copy Tuesday. The request seeks documents related to the Texas board’s “review or consideration of the CLT for use in Texas public higher education admissions or related policies.” Among other things, it asks for “validation materials” CLT submitted and for copies of correspondence among CLT employees, board employees and board members.

Asked to respond to Tate’s social media posts, Ritsch, in his email, said that “in the assessment field, accuracy, reliability, and integrity are core requirements. We believe that applies to the tests themselves and should apply to the people who develop and advocate for them.”

He also didn’t shy away from criticizing the Classic Learning Test directly, saying it “lacks the evidence required for a credible college readiness assessment—and even falls short of affirming high school achievement in math.”

“The CLT is giving high school students a false sense of accomplishment, especially in math that’s foundational to college success, many jobs, military leadership, money management, and other life skills,” Ritsch said. “That’s a disservice to those young people, and it’s costly to their states and the communities who are counting on their high school graduates to prosper and contribute as adults.”

The public spat underscores Tate’s continued, unconventional push to broaden states’ and universities’ acceptance of his standardized test in a country where two players, SAT and ACT, have long reigned supreme, but were weakened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

After the vast majority of colleges and universities stopped requiring standardized test scores amid the pandemic, Ivy League institutions and some public institutions have begun requiring them again for admissions, offering a chance for test providers to regain their footing. But FairTest, a group that opposes standardized tests, says that out of the roughly 2,200 bachelor’s degree–granting institutions that it tracks, around 90 percent still don’t require test scores.

Both College Board and ACT have faced criticism from the right and left. Recently, some red states have opened the doors to the CLT, which focuses on passages from what’s often called the Western canon. The CLT’s 150-person author bank only includes 11 who were born after 1900.

CLT on the March

Arkansas, Florida and Oklahoma allow students to submit CLT scores for admission to their public institutions, while Louisiana, Oklahoma and Wyoming let students submit CLT scores for state merit scholarships.

The University of North Carolina System accepts CLT scores for students who meet a grade point average threshold, and the military service academies also now accept the CLT for admissions. And, in July, Texas higher ed commissioner Wynn Rosser said public institutions can consider CLT scores “as a factor in making admission decisions for first-time freshmen who do not qualify for automatic admission” per Texas state law, plus for international admissions and returning students. Rosser’s letter said the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board intended to expand acceptance of CLT in the future.

Colyandro, the CLT lobbyist, provided documents that say the request came in shortly after Rosser’s July letter. Colyandro said Texas law required the THECB to inform CLT about the request because CLT was an affected party, and CLT had the right to object to the release of certain information.

In an email, Colyandro said CLT is objecting to the release of records that “pertain to highly sensitive aspects of our internal business operations, proprietary information regarding our products, or data security practices. Release of this information would cause CLT competitive harm and materially assist bad actors seeking unauthorized access to student information held by CLT. The proprietary information CLT protested regards the exact number of questions per item type and how we construct our test forms. The release of this information would give test takers and competitors information they shouldn’t have.”

It’s unclear whether the threatened FOIA war will actually happen. Tate told Inside Higher Ed that “if they want to play dirty, we’ll have to play dirty back.” But Noah Tyler, chief financial officer for CLT and head of its legal team, said, “We’re not currently planning to, just based on this one.”

Asked about the Classic Learning Test’s accusations against College Board, Harry Feder, executive director of FairTest, said, “Both should be FOIA’ed.”

“I think that the College Board needs to be transparent about its own campaigns to sell its services and get its data from students around the country, and I think the CLT needs to be transparent about whether or not its tests meet standard psychometric criteria or not and the alliances that it has formed with right-wing organizations,” Feder said.

“College Board has a point about CLT, and I think CLT has a point about the College Board—although it being sort of woke and communist is probably not accurate,” Feder said. “I would say that reducing student learning and student achievement to a single instrument—standardized tests—as both of these organizations are attempting, is not helpful to the state of American education, and that we need richer forms of assessment.”

“A pox on both their houses,” Feder added.