Higher Education 2.4.26

Many families believe and I believe the data proves it true that it offers a more rigorous education and a formational one as well. It may not be for everyone but we live in a nation that values freedom of choice in education whether that's government school, private school, or home school. And I would love to see that freedom of choice extended to standardized testing as well. When one or two private companies dominate the testing landscape, That monopoly reduces healthy competition and often influences how schools teach and what curriculum they choose. And so we can all agree assessment choice does matter.

We would like our students whether they pursue public education or private education, higher education to have the option to choose a test that aligns with the their curriculum and pedagogy. The CLT measures the same core skills colleges care about but it does so through longer passages. The ACT and SAT have shortened their passages to about the length of a of a tweet and serious texts and logical reasoning. From a school leaders perspective, I also want to emphasize that when the state limits which assessments count, schools might feel pressure to teach to a test even when that test does not align with their academic rigor and their standard. Expanding assessment options protects educational diversity while maintaining academic rigor.

So this as said previously is not about replacing the SAT or the ACT. It's just about adding one more valid door for the people, the students, and the families of our state to walk through. So on behalf of our students, families, and many educators across the state of Georgia, I respectfully urge you to support this

Maureen. Thank you. Am I reading this Maureen Foreman?

You're right.

Yes, ma'am. Okay. That was sort of a for and against that went over our two minutes, before. And I'm gonna

I'm gonna hold you a little closer

to it. We've got two more speakers and

You got it. I will

I will minus six minutes.

I will communicate my remarks. Thank you very much for having me. Maureen Foreman, college board vice president of our our SAT sweep program and information. I'm here today to represent, the SAT in comparison to this bill. My testimony focuses on three key areas where the CLT falls short of the standards set by the SAT and ACT.

First, the absence of established independent predictive validity, concerns related to rigor and score comparability, and differences in test security and standardized administrations. These concerns are particularly relevant as the committee considers House Bill ten sixty four, which would place the CLT alongside long established college admissions exams for statewide use. You guys have mentioned this already. Scholarships are a finite resource, and we have to hold students to the same standard for how they qualify for scholarships and access to opportunity. The SAT and ACT have been subject to decades of independent research demonstrating robust predictive validity for post secondary performance, including first year GPA and retention.

The Iowa Board of Regents evaluated whether the CLT should be used by the state's public universities and it found no evidence to support the predictive efficacy of the CLT and no evidence of peer peer reviewed journal journal articles, addressing relationship to student outcomes. All of this tells us that these are not the same. This is not an apples to apples comparison of where students are. It's not a standards aligned assessment of student achievement across the state of Georgia, and it isn't about creating preference for how students qualify for opportunities in Georgia and beyond. To say that the CLT, which is an assessment of different standards, is equal is a real difference from what Georgia believes in.

This house committee is about to also consider the Math Matters Act. That act, intends to really look at the rigor of math in schools and how it aligns to Georgia's priorities. When we think about the math matters act which seeks to strengthen math math instruction, expand access to advanced coursework and improve student proficiency statewide, it's essential that any assessment used to signal readiness aligns with those objectives. Unlike the CLT, the SAT and the ACT are proven standardized assessments of math standards and reinforces the state's efforts to raise academic standards for all students. Thank you for having me.

Thank you, miss Wong. Doug Dyer. Maybe I should have made you all stand up and then you're gonna no. I'm just kidding. Go ahead.

Yes, sir.

Please. Thank you, mister chairman and, members of the higher education committee. I'm I'm here speaking on behalf of the 65 families, that are enrolled at Rivendell Academy in Columbus, Georgia, where I'm the head of school. And the many hundreds of families that are enrolled in classical schools, if not by this point, thousands of families across the state of Georgia as they continue to grow. And this bill is a really exciting one for us.

It allows for a test that we administer to our students that aligns with our curriculum standards, which are set by accrediting agencies that Georgia already accepts a pathway to a test that would allow them to compete on the same standard as everyone else, along with opening the same pathway for public school students and closing no pathways that are currently open. The main point that I think has not been raised yet that I want to bring aware to all of us is that we just heard mister Green give a presentation, and and he talked about how this committee and the Georgia House and Georgia Senate recently have to pursue school choice, whether that's homeschooling or in a private school of various natures. If we're giving them the money to pursue those education pathways inside the state of Georgia, but then closing down opportunities for them to compete for the scholarship money that would keep them at universities here in Georgia, I feel like that is a massive conflict for us. We're we're promoting students to go to pathways outside of a pathway that leads to a university here in Georgia because if families are not able to compete on the same par for Zell Miller and and Hope Scholarships, they're going to leave the state and go to other universities in other states.

So this will help keep more of the my promise money, which is doing wonderful things in the university systems here in Georgia, which will continue to keep many across public and private schools of the most competitive young minds in the state.

Thank you all. Thank you, mister Dyer. Matt Baker, final speaker.

Mister chairman, thank you for, accommodating and and making time work out. Committee members, I'm honored to be able to share with you and, speak to you this afternoon. My name is Matt Baker. I am, the head of school at Oak Hill Classical School in Tequila, Georgia. We serve a student body from, Gwinnett County, Barrow County, Hall County, and Jackson County, or where our students come from.

And it is a privilege to speak to you in favor of HB ten sixty four, this afternoon, which seeks to add the CLT to several areas state law for it to be recognized, with the HOPE scholarship and the Zell Miller. Oak Hill is approaching its twentieth year, being founded in February 2006 that seeks to cultivate, an education that is based on the liberal arts tradition. Our aim is to produce scholars who read widely and well, who think deeply, act wisely, and communicate winsomely in the culture in which they live. We have been using the CLT in our school for seven years. The reason for using the CLTs that aligns with our educational philosophy, testing verbal, reasoning, grammar, and writing in mathematics.

The CLT test these critical, components of intellectual formation, aligning with our aim of cultivating lifelong learners. In our school's life, the majority of our students have stayed in Georgia beyond their k 12 education, attending Georgia colleges and universities and entering the Georgia workforce. The opportunity to have students' CLT scores qualify for the great benefit that Georgia residents have the opportunity to in the Zell Miller and the HOPE Scholarships is a tremendous one. This would allow our students to use an assessment post k 12 education. As, one college administrator has said, the students, of the college administrator has said, the students, of the CLT stripe are more often discerning readers capable of independent critical judgment and broadly conversant with the cultural legacy which has shaped the Western world for more than two millennia, end quote.

I would agree that the growth of the CLT to over offering over 250,000 tests administered in 2024 and now more than 330 colleges and universities nationwide accepting it shows its value as an academic aptitude assessments. Thank you for hearing my testimony.

Thank you, mister Baker. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our speakers, about twenty eight minutes ago. So with with that, I'm going to apologize once again to my my audience and and my members, for getting squeezed in our meeting meeting time. And, to to you, chairman Rice, I would normally go back and ask you to close, but I think you have to be in the same place that, we are we are supposed to be in. So I'm gonna tell you we'll we'll have you back next Wednesday, and have a more, full full throated and and, further discussion.

Many times when we bring up a bill back for this committee, we won't take testimony again since it was so brief today for for the from a testimony from a testimony standpoint, we will reset, and that would be as if it were the first hearing. So we will hear anybody on any subject on any, portion of the bill. My my apologies again for, going through this, having to go through this so fast. Had I known we were gonna be squeezed, we would have just backed it up a week. But with that, if there's no objection and and the the committee will, accept my apologies, I will thank you for your attendance.

And we'll stand adjourn without objection. Hearing no objection, we're adjourned.