What is the Classic Learning Test?

This is a transcript of my presentation to the Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops on Friday September 16th, 2022.

Your Excellencies, Superintendents, friends of Catholic education, thank you for being here. And thank you to the University of St. Thomas for being a gracious host. My name is Chelsea Niemiec. I am the Director of Catholic School Partnerships here at CLT. I am also a graduate student at the University of Dallas studying classical education, a former Catholic middle school teacher, and the founder of The Catholic Education Invitation. I was so delighted to see that the theme of this assembly is ‘Eucharist, Evangelization, Education’. All of these three elements of the Catholic life have something in common: they are all deeply personal experiences.

In the Eucharist, we experience God - one on one - in silence and adoration. Through evangelization, we encounter another person’s witness and testimony that opens our hearts to Christ and His Church. Finally, education is a personal experience of truth, goodness, and beauty through the witness of a good teacher that naturally turns the soul towards God. These experiences are real encounters between people. 

Today, I am here to talk to you about the most supremely personal, thoroughly interesting, and most exhilarating element of Catholic education - standardized testing. Of course, I say this with a bit of humor because testing for a long time has become quite impersonal and lackluster for students, teachers, and administrators. How could a test possibly support the Catholic understanding of the human person? How could a test be personal at all?

Before I dive into these questions, I want to give a brief overview of who we are at CLT.