Homeschooling: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight3 HN recommenders · recommended in 2 months, 2023-2025
8M views · 3 years ago · commentary · dated
John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on homeschooling, focusing on how little regulation exists in many US states. It covers states where a one-time declaration removes children from any oversight.
HN commenters use it as a researched, eye-opening reference whenever homeschooling oversight comes up.
18:02Standardized Testing: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
16.2M views • 11 years ago
20:23Food Safety: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
5M views • 3 years ago
17:43Prison: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
11M views • 12 years ago
29:32Air Traffic Control: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
9.3M views • 1 year ago
19:28Scientific Studies: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
18.1M views • 10 years ago
22:29The Power Grid: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
7.3M views • 4 years ago
14:36The Lottery: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
16M views • 11 years ago
25:28Homeowners Associations: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
8.5M views • 3 years ago
16:17Student Debt: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
14.1M views • 12 years ago
33:14Government Surveillance: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
38.7M views • 11 years ago
19:33Net Neutrality II: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
8.8M views • 9 years ago
18:15USPS: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
8.3M views • 6 years ago
16:32Predatory Lending: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
14.3M views • 12 years ago
32:59Prediction Markets: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
4.4M views • 6 months ago
18:46Credit Reports: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
12.3M views • 10 years ago
19:22Voting Machines: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
6.5M views • 7 years ago
19:23Journalism: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
15.1M views • 10 years ago
15:39Mobile Homes: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
10.4M views • 7 years ago
21:22Sponsored Content: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
7.4M views • 5 years ago
11:04Patents: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight
9.3M views • 11 years ago
6 comments from Hacker News
> And yet home-schooled students widely outperform government-schooled students, both during homeschooling and in college GPAs. I'd love to see your citations on that. Because my impression is that, precisely because of the lack of regulation in many states, homeschooling has bimodal outcomes. Some children turn out better (read: those of wealthy, educated parents with extra time to spend on educating) while some children turn out much worse than even the worst public schools (read: kids of religious/political-indoctrination parents and/or ones of limited socioeconomic means/time). At minimum, it seems pretty reasonable to have homeschooled kids take the same milestone tests as public school kids, in order to objectively measure if their teachers are doing the job well. You know, considering (a) it's a decision children aren't empowered to make for themselves, (b) there are a lot of crazy-as-fuck parents out there, and (c) it's something that will define the rest of kids' lives. "Oops, my bad" in the event of poor outcomes won't put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Ref to start: ▶ this video
Here's your chance to get up to speed -> John Oliver breaking it down in a lot more researched detail: ▶ this video
John Oliver did an eye opening bit on homeschooling: ▶ this video The lack of regulation is concerning. What's truly disturbing is how easily it is for children to fall through the cracks when there are no teachers to report possible abuse. Frightening.
Homeschooling _can_ work. But the likelihood of it working well is pretty low. You literally have a teacher wife who is homeschooling the kids. For most people homeschooling = not schooling. Very heavily used by the hassidic community here in nyc to prevent girls from having any education. I linked to ▶ this video as a top level post, but just to give you some ideas. This is John Oliver's take on it.
Very much so. Watching the Last Week Tonight segment ( ▶ this video ) on this recently, in a startling number of states, a one time declaration that you're homeschooling effectively drops the kids out of the system with zero oversight from that point on. You get things like a Christian family whose "curriculum" for their daughters was: listen to classical music, bible listening 20 minutes/day, handwriting, bible memorization, exercise 15/day (not great so far, but wait for it): clean room 6/week, fold laundry 5/week, clean living room 5/week, clear off bar 6/week, tidy shelves in dining room 3/week, tidy stereo cabinet 2/week, clean brown cupboard in pantry 5/week, clean storeroom 1/week, tidy blue chest, dust piano, clean and vacuum, clean hallway, make bed...
John Oliver did a great segment on the issues with home schooling in the modern age a few weeks ago. ▶ this video