John Oliver Blasts Charter Schools | The Odyssey Online
Start writing a post
Student Life

John Oliver Blasts Charter Schools

Charter Schools are not always a great school choice

7
John Oliver Blasts Charter Schools
Charter Schools USA

Politicians may love to praise charter schools, but John Oliver opted to take look into their operations on Last Week Tonight Sunday, and came up with some rather disturbing findings.

“Charter schools unite both sides of the aisle more quickly than when a wedding deejay throws on ‘Hey Ya,’” he said. “Charters are basically public schools that are taxpayer-funded but privately run. The first ones emerged 25 years ago as places to experiment with new educational approaches.”

He went on to explain that there are currently more than 6,700 such schools — including ones launched by celebrities including Andre Agassi, Puff Daddy, and Pitbull — educating nearly 3 million students.

“For this piece — and I know this is going to make some people on both sides very angry — we’re going to set aside whether or not charter schools are a good idea in principle, because whether they are or not, in 42 states and D.C., we’re doing them. So, instead, we’re going to look at how they operate in practice,” he said.

Oliver then pointed out that “around the country, there have been charter schools so flawed, they don’t make it through the school year,” before diving into some of the entities that oversee such schools, especially in Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, where some have folded just six weeks into the school year. The cause? A lax approval process, as well as administrators who’ve been arrested for theft and embezzlement of school funds.

Nearly 180,000 students “attend” online charter schools, which have some additionally frightening statistics. In most cases, states require attendance records, so all students are marked as present every day, whether they logged in or not. “You’re basically giving kids a box that contains video games, pornography, and long division and claiming 100 percent of them chose the right one,” Oliver said. “One major study found that compared to students in traditional schools, students in online charters lost an average of about 72 days of learning in reading and 180 days of learning in math during the course of a 180-day school year.”

To summarize, Oliver recalled comments Ohio Governor John Kasich made about charter schools creating positive competition for public schools, comparing them to pizza shops. “The problem with letting the free market decide when it comes to kids is that kids change faster than the market, and by the time it’s obvious the school is failing, futures may have been ruined,” Oliver said. “So if we are going to treat charter schools like ‘pizza shops,’ we should monitor them at least as well as we do pizzerias. It’s like the old saying: Give a kid a s—-y pizza, you f— up their day; treat a kid like a s—-y pizza, you could f— up their entire life.”

Report this Content
This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
student sleep
Huffington Post

I think the hardest thing about going away to college is figuring out how to become an adult. Leaving a household where your parents took care of literally everything (thanks, Mom!) and suddenly becoming your own boss is overwhelming. I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job of being a grown-up, but once in awhile I do something that really makes me feel like I'm #adulting. Twenty-somethings know what I'm talking about.

Keep Reading...Show less
school
blogspot

I went to a small high school, like 120-people-in-my-graduating-class small. It definitely had some good and some bad, and if you also went to a small high school, I’m sure you’ll relate to the things that I went through.

1. If something happens, everyone knows about it

Who hooked up with whom at the party? Yeah, heard about that an hour after it happened. You failed a test? Sorry, saw on Twitter last period. Facebook fight or, God forbid, real fight? It was on half the class’ Snapchat story half an hour ago. No matter what you do, someone will know about it.

Keep Reading...Show less
Chandler Bing

I'm assuming that we've all heard of the hit 90's TV series, Friends, right? Who hasn't? Admittedly, I had pretty low expectations when I first started binge watching the show on Netflix, but I quickly became addicted.

Without a doubt, Chandler Bing is the most relatable character, and there isn't an episode where I don't find myself thinking, Yup, Iam definitely the Chandler of my friend group.

Keep Reading...Show less
eye roll

Working with the public can be a job, in and of itself. Some people are just plain rude for no reason. But regardless of how your day is going, always having to be in the best of moods, or at least act like it... right?

1. When a customer wants to return a product, hands you the receipt, where is printed "ALL SALES ARE FINAL" in all caps.

2. Just because you might be having a bad day, and you're in a crappy mood, doesn't make it okay for you to yell at me or be rude to me. I'm a person with feelings, just like you.

3. People refusing to be put on hold when a customer is standing right in front of you. Oh, how I wish I could just hang up on you!

Keep Reading...Show less
blair waldorf
Hercampus.com

RBF, or resting b*tch face, is a serious condition that many people suffer from worldwide. Suffers are often bombarded with daily questions such as "Are you OK?" and "Why are you so mad?" If you have RBF, you've probably had numerous people tell you to "just smile!"

While this question trend can get annoying, there are a couple of pros to having RBF.

Keep Reading...Show less

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Facebook Comments