Can Education Be Values-Neutral? | Office Hours with Jeremy Tate

On Office Hours with Jeremy Tate, Jeremy and Soren dive into the most recent, need-to-know news surrounding the education renewal movement. Tune in to hear about how the College Board recently removed a practice question linking female empowerment to low birth rates and how that correlates to the conversation around values-neutral education. A new National Review article by Daniel Buck pinpoints the virtue of classical schooling and the areas in which it is different from public education. They conclude by discussing a new College Board statistic revealing a decline in the rigor of the SAT math section, and why that may be in the College Board’s best interest. 

Transcript

Soren Schwab - CLT (00:01.346)
The College Board has removed a practice exam question that recently called FLAC online for equating low birth rates with female empowerment, further proving that education has never been and will never be values neutral. Our friend Daniel Buck was featured in the National Review with a beautiful piece highlighting what actually happens in classical schools that makes them so different. And finally, a startling study reveals a dramatic decline in the difficulty of the SAT math section.

My name is Soren Schwab, and this is Office Hours with Jeremy Tate.

Soren Schwab - CLT (00:39.384)
Welcome back to the Anchored Podcast. And thank you for joining us for a new episode of Office Hours. Actually, this time, the first time in the same office with the one and only Jeremy Tate. Welcome. This is great, being in the same room and new building in downtown the heart of Annapolis. If you're listening to this and you're in Annapolis, come knock on our door and we'll get a crab cake together. Absolutely. That's a standing offer. We're so excited to talk three exciting topics today, two of them about the College Board.

But then we have some redeeming topic in the middle there too. But let's start with this. And actually, this is a topic that we talked about a few weeks ago in office hours. For the listeners, maybe that we're not involved in that. The college board had a question on a human geography. I think it was an online practice quiz. And it was essentially, it asked students to examine a chart with birth rate and death rates in five countries and then choose, well, which data best represents a high level

of quote, female empowerment. And the answer that College Board gave would be France for no other reason that France has a low birth rate. It made the rounds, I think it was tweeted at you and then you shared it. And a lot of people picked it up, shared it as well and certainly criticized the College Board for that. And they took it down. Just recently, kind of your response to that. Well, I this is pure abolition of man, right? You know, the student thinks all they're doing, they're reading a table.

That's the skill they're testing. In reality, they're testing ideological conformity that you've bought into this particular view of children. the fact that the college board though took it down, that they were exposed for this, to me was encouraging. I think it's a proof of concept in a lot of ways for what we're doing. Yeah, yeah. In a way, they did the right thing. Should we celebrate that? Our competitor did the right thing, but they also went to two -hour test online, which we kind of

We were the vanguard of that. So in a way, we're helping drive positive change. But let's not forget, this was an online practice quiz that we just happened to see. You are wondering what our students seeing when they take the SAT. Yeah. was Carolyn Andrews, a student who tweeted this out and it really went viral from that. But the college board is certainly not neutral.

Soren Schwab - CLT (03:03.406)
Nobody's kind of afforded that position of moral neutrality on these. And this is the point that CLT has been trying to make for nine years now, is that education is inherently formative. It's about passing on the values and convictions of one generation to the next. And the values and vision of the college board don't necessarily align with a lot of Americans and especially many of the students that we serve. Yeah. Yeah. Well, sometimes when I have this conversation, the reality is a lot of Christian school and classical school

even though they run their schools so incredibly well, when it comes to testing, oftentimes they do take the position of, it's just testing, it's values neutral. And I'd like to push back a little bit. Of course, inevitably they ask, well, what is CLT stands? And I usually say, well, no, we are biased towards truth, goodness and beauty. And we're gonna lean into that heavily. And so we do take a position. I think the College Board does too, we just happen to admit what it is. And I would argue that it's in line with a lot of our classical and Christian school friends.

Yep. Yeah. I love that story. And, we, try to keep reiterating that, testing is pedagogical testing, teach it. It is not just the process of taking the test, but the way that it conveys to students what is and what isn't important, as well. And I feel like people are waking up to that reality. I think so too. Well, for, our, our second topic here, really excited about this. Daniel Buck, good friend, Fordham Institute. He's just, I mean, really emerging as, as one of the leading voices in

this educational renewal going back to basics approach of education and really just pointing out common sense, which makes him controversial at times, it seems. But what I love about this article in the National Review, the virtues of classical schools is that a lot of the media coverage is kind of about, as it should be, right? A lot about the philosophical, the first principles of classical education. It can seem kind of up in the air sometimes. Well,

Daniel just started a new job as assistant principal at one of our CLT partner schools, actually Hillsdale Charter School called Lake Country Classical Academy in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. And I practice it and I think I got it right, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. And his article focuses not so much about the tenants of classical education, but more, well, when you visit a classical school, what is different? And what he points out, I would love to get your reaction, is what he's calling

Soren Schwab - CLT (05:22.242)
hidden or implicit curriculum. So not necessarily what's on the book list, but he asked some questions. When you walk into these classical schools, what's on the walls? What behavior is rewarded or sanctioned? Do adults decide which books to read or do the children? What language do teachers use? And he's arguing that each of these decisions is part of shaping the culture of the school beyond maybe what's outward facing on a curriculum list. So Jeremy, you...

probably visited more classical schools than anyone in this country. Besides you. Maybe besides me. What would you say to that and that kind of affirm what you've known to be true? Yeah, I think for a minute though, we got to just pick on Daniel Bach, our boy. We've known Daniel since 2018. I love his progression. Daniel, five, six years ago, I think was one of the people calling out the really toxic nonsense in mainstream schools. And he was kind of like, I like this classical concept. And I think we've seen him more and more, Daniel. You got to love it.

He's just, he's all in classical now. seen it. he was at those toxic public schools too. Right? And now he's also saying, you I'm going to... Yeah. And I love to hear a couple of your most powerful visits, you know, but I think about the classical charter schools we visit, know, Lindsay Hoyt School, Jacksonville Classical, amazing founders, know, Jason Karras's school. You go through it and it's every aspect, attention to detail, you know, from the art on the wall, the quotes they're putting up on the wall.

the order, you know, the students are well behaved. I sent my boy Wells to a classical Catholic school. We had to get him that haircut before school. They're not putting up with that mop head of hair that he likes to grow every summer. So there's that level of kind of order and discipline, but it's all focused around this different vision. And so if you ask the teachers and more and more if you ask the students, what are we doing here? What's the point of all of this? They're going to say something like growing in wisdom, growing in love for God, growing in virtue.

And you're not gonna get that answer in the mainstream public schools. That's the fundamental difference and everything flows from that. So what have been a couple of your most powerful visits? Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. And I always notice the joy that students have. You know, I think sometimes when we think back to our school time, I don't know if joy is the right word, right? Oftentimes it seems like brick and mortar schools can be joy killers, right? But when you go through some of these class Christian schools,

Soren Schwab - CLT (07:47.278)
The teachers are so full of joy, the students are. And I remember when I was at the Vanguard School once a year, I'm sure they had that in Maryland too, but it Teacher Appreciation Day. I know if you remember, but I would always go to Chipotle because you had, know, buy one, get one free and teacher salary, you'll buy a few of those. But I remember standing in line with a lot of other teachers and they were miserable. And I felt like, wow, I love my job.

And they talked about discipline, exactly what Daniel talks about in his article. They didn't have the support from administration about discipline. I'm like, no, our kids, we discipline, we create structure, all these things. And it leads to us just being more joyful in pursuing truth. So I'm wondering, even just saying that, he quotes the principal saying that, what makes their school different? And she says, we're grounded in what is true and what is good.

But you can't really say that anymore in a traditional public school, right? Because immediately, well, whose truth are you talking about? What is truth? What is goodness? So even on that front, classical schools are so different. Is it irredeemable, though? Could there still be a model for public schools? I don't know. I want to say there's hope for that. But if you could point at one thing that public schools could easily copy from some of those.

classical school, would it be? Well, it's interesting, Sornia. Often we actually are reading many of the same books, you know, as a public school. There's still a lot of great books in the public school. A lot of public schools are still reading Shakespeare. They're reading Catching the Rye. They're reading some of the books that you may see in classical schools, I think. But it's the why behind why we do everything that we do, you know, that the students are learning about and the cohesion for how these things are all connected, right? And for many students, you know, every period feels like just a disconnected arbitrary random class they have to take for some reason.

rather than being drawn into this beautiful tradition, intellectual tradition, culture tradition that is classical education. Yeah, absolutely. Well, for the last story, we're going back to the SAT. And this one, I am so grateful that someone sent me that, a new report. It's called, math SAT scores may be doing worse than we had thought, question mark, implying that we already knew they were pretty bad.

Soren Schwab - CLT (10:06.158)
And that gets to the heart of something that I've been wrestling with since starting at CLT or even before when I administered CLT at my school, that the response from a lot of students is, wow, CLT math is hard. But I remember when I first looked at it and I looked at old SATs, it was very, very similar. So it didn't really seem harder from what it used to be. Well, the logical consequence would be, well, the other ones got easier.

And so this new study came out and it found a significant decrease in the difficulty of the SAT math section over time, alongside a decline in students' math performance. Now get this Jeremy, the analysis shows a 71 point drop in the rigor of SAT math, just from 2008 to 2023, with student performance decreasing by 36 points.

Yeah. What are your thoughts on that? So this is a combined, it's not just that the students are doing far worse, but they're doing far worse on a much dumber test. Yeah, that's exactly right. Both of these things have happened at the same time. And this is a concept that we noticed that started happening. I the ACT launches in the late 1950s as a competitor. And over time, there basically started to be a market incentive to be the easier test. Why would they want that? Well, it means market dominance. You're going to be the easier gateway to scholarships.

into admission. And so over time, it's been this race to the bottom for which test is going to be easier and the SAT is not going to be outdone. All right. They're not going to be outdone. It's silly. And it's silly to these classical schools. They look at the new SAT, all their kids, you know, it's a feel good experience. Sure. We'll give them that. But classical schools want something more than a feel good experience for their kids. And you go back to the tell -offs, right? They're not

sending their kids to classical schools or they're not teaching at classical schools just to check a box and say, I got these kids into college, right? It's about human flourishing. I remember when I talked to a college professor a few years ago, he said that, you know, the SAT scores for a while had actually gone up. And then he asked me, do you know at our university, that was a prestigious university in Atlanta, Georgia, I'm going to say that. He said, you know what's also gone up? The number of remedial classes that we have to teach. Wow. And so

Soren Schwab - CLT (12:22.932)
You know, the students are not prepared for college, but they have that feel good experience of getting a higher score. So obviously you're the founder of CLT. You intentionally decided to make the math non -calculator math, kind of go back to logic reasoning. You probably knew that some people might not like that because it's harder. Yeah. And I would say this was Thomas Aquinas College. We love, love, love our dear friends at Thomas Aquinas College. And they had really strong opinions about what happened when

the SAT started allowing the calculator that you had. We say the test drives practicing curriculum and it really does. A whole generation of students became very dependent on using a device. And this is partially because we have forgotten that math is formative. I believe someone is one of your Hillsdale professors. I heard him speak about why we do math at one of these conferences over the years. And he said something along the lines that we do math to impress upon the souls of our students, the beauty and order of the universe. I was like,

Never heard that. All I was ever told is that you're going to use it someday, which is not true. I never use math and I get by just fine, I think. But what about this richer, higher? And I think this is what the ancients understood as well, that there's an inherent beauty. Never heard a word about the inherent beauty of math ever growing up. Yeah. Yeah. Well, fascinating, Jeremy, fascinating. Well, as always, I appreciate you. I do want to pick your brain on one thing too.

You're mentioning we're in the new office. Well, just last week we had our office warming party and we're in the heart of historic Annapolis with a staff that has grown significantly over the last few years. Maybe kind of share kind of your favorite moment of those three days that we spent together in Annapolis. man. I you going to ask new favorite staff member. They're all so amazing. Yeah, I'm just blown away by the people coming to CLT, but I'm really blown away by that.

the formation. mean, the best argument for classical education is meeting people like Isabel Clary, Anne Marie, Regina, Taryn, Annie McAdams. I mean, all of these young people, our whole marketing, or most of our marketing folks are Hillsdale graduates. And this, to me, that's a highlight of seeing this is the fruit of this education is in the integrity of the lives that these young people are leading.

Soren Schwab - CLT (14:41.952)
I thought that was a highlight. And then we also had this grand unveiling. my dear friend, Tim Fice, he had been working for months and months carving into stone, into marble, see a classic learning test in Greek and Latin and in English. He gave this beautiful kind of impromptu speech where he said in the ancient world, if a name was worth remembering, they put it into stone. I thought that was so cool. He didn't even know he was going to speak till a minute before I called him up, but he said that and it was so powerful. Absolutely.

Yeah, what was it for you? Yeah, I think you mentioned most of them. Yeah, I think I think one of mine was we hired two new senior developers. Yes. And right. You think, David and Ryan and, and they're both such mission fits. I think we had over 300 applications for for a senior developer position. Now, you might think, well, if I'm hiring someone for sales or marketing, right? I mean, of course, they have to have a passion for classical, but I think as a company, sometimes you might say, well,

maybe the tech team doesn't have to, right? mean, they're not outward facing. And the fact that we were able to hire interview folks, hire folks even on the tech side that are so bought into what we're doing and that look at what they're doing on a day -to -day basis, coding, creating all this as part of a larger mission like that, that is something that I don't think the College Board can say. no. And the other thing is this, we've met with folks from the College Board and they're not having a lot of fun.

They're not having a lot of fun. There's not a lot of joy. There's not a lot of fire. Our team is pumped up to do. We've got a big, big task ahead of us, but there's so much energy and excitement to get there. Absolutely. Awesome. Wonderful. Well, as always, Jeremy, thank you so much and we'll see you next time. you.