Homeschooling: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

I’m an attorney and I was homeschooled and whenever I mention it to people that I meet they always say “oh well you turned out okay so your parents must have done a good job homeschooling you.” I turned out okay DESPITE the weak efforts of my mom to homeschool us. She would throw a textbook at us and tell us to fill it out and there are huge gaps in my schooling to this day. I’m anti-homeschooling and don’t understand why people are so shocked that a completely unregulated industry has so many loopholes in it. Thanks John Oliver for bringing attention to this!

I was “homeschooled” when I was a kid because “liberals were indoctrinated me” When I got to public school a few years later , one of my teachers would spend every lunch period with me & go over basic elementary science, math & grammar skills & history skill’s because she was nervous I didn’t learn them I still talk to this teacher 18 years later! She basically saved me!

"Being a parent does not automatically make someone moral, and being with a parent, does not automatically make a child safe" John was SPITTIN'

I was a college professor. The students who went to college after homeschooling were all over the map. Some had parents who followed the state curriculum using the state-adopted textbooks, which the schools provided for free. These students could not be distinguished from the other students. But most homeschooled parents didn't do this, so there was a lot of "mislearning," where students had simply learned the wrong way to do things or nonsense "facts." I also had a student complain that her sister took her kids out of school and called it homeschooling but she didn't do it; the kids just did what they wanted to all day. She thought that there would be a state office responsible for putting the kids back in school (the children wanted to go back to school, especially the teenager who was aware of how far behind she was getting). There wasn't. Educational neglect is also child neglect. A lot of state effort is focused on public schools for curriculum, textbooks, teacher quality, etc. Teachers are evaluated constantly and undergo many hours of professional development each year to maintain their licenses. Children are tested each year, and even though there are problems with so much testing, at least the public is informed on how well the schools are doing. Experts are brought in to provide services for children with disabilities; my son, who is hearing impaired, had speech pathologists who worked with him intensively and successfully for years. My niece was sexually abused by her stepfather when she was six--it was teachers who noticed and called in CPS. None of that would happen in homeschooling. The idea that homeschooling parents can do anything they want without supervision and regulation is horrendous. The fact they don't need to have an education themselves or can just skip over things like math because they don't know it is also horrendous. Or that they can purchase curricula that teach nonsense like dinosaurs and people co-existing is terrible. And it's the children who are cheated because they may be totally unprepared for adult life.

"Having a child does not inherently make you virtuous." We will fix a lot of society's problems by understanding this deeply.

There were a lot of ridiculous ways I expected the podcast lady to describe her child’s education, but “making a wonderful Nazi” was NOT one of them

I was homeschooled in Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri and Alabama. I had to teach myself everything, starting at age 11. The highest level math work book I was ever given was division, and my parents didn't actually make me use it (I didn't even know textbooks or teachers guides were a thing until I was an adult). My parents were somehow under the impression that if you have good literature in the environment that will teach your kids everything they need to know by osmosis or something. I had to teach myself enough math and science to barely pass the GED so I could go to community college. I won't speak to minority families that choose it as that's not the background I'm from, but homeschooling NEEDS to be regulated. Otherwise it's ripe for educational neglect and child labor (yes, child labor).

John got his BINGO! Will we get an episode about war crimes without consequences? Could be featuring many other guests of dishonor!

Imagine caring more about parents having to deal with regulations than children being abused. Disgusting.

"To make sure your child will be a wonderful nazi" that hit me like a fucking freight train

It's insane that parents aren't even required to have a high school degree in order to homeschool.

My sister and I were homeschooled and loved it. It helped get her out of a system that couldn't handle her ADHD needs, and get me away from bullies. We also live in country where you have to follow an approved curriculum, with actual qualified teachers checking your progress as you go to make sure you're meeting the national standards for mandatory education. I'm a big home-schooling advocate, but not the way America does it.

As a child who was homeschooled by an abusive parent, this story hits home. Thank you, John Oliver and everyone at Last Week Tonight. This country would be a lot better if we could all accept that children are people, not parental property, and they deserve rights, too.

My homeschooling experience was a nightmare. I had to relearn everything as an adult because the curriculum was so religiously eschewed. Between that and the audacity my parents had to believe they could teach 5 kids an education they didn’t even finish themselves…and well I’m sure you can imagine how that went.

I have to speak to the other side of this. I homeschool my 13 yo son. He is legally blind and has emotional struggles. Public school couldn't manage him and decided that he belonged in a behavioral school because he would run out of the classroom up and down the halls. These 'behavioral schools' were teaching 5th graders how to write 3 word sentences (I observed this on a tour). My child had an assessed IQ of 145, was reading Dr Suess and Pooh books fluently by 3yo and entered kindergarten doing long division and multiplication in his head. I decided to homeschool in 3rd grade. He was allowed to run and jump at will and educated in between. His emotional issues mellowed when allowed more movement. He is given State testing and is on grade level with writing, but all other subjects is 1-5 years ahead. He is in 8th grade now, and next semester he will be attending his first community college class. I agree that homeschooling should be more regulated, but not because it's all bad. I know many families just like mine, that are homeschooling and find their children soaring far beyond what they were capable of doing in public schools.

Homeschooling was a savior for mysiblings because of how bad the school was in how they did not protect them from being bullied relentlessly. My mom was unable to get any headway with the school administrators about it.

Just started the video, i was fundamental Christian homeschooled in Arizona in the 90s. ZERO oversight, ZERO regulations. Took GED at 16, been trying to catch up with education through YouTube since then. Edit: everything he said was real. My "curriculum" was based on the "Proverbs 31 woman" . I did NOT get a good education, never knew I had ADHD, needed glasses, or understood ANYTHING about safe sex which all harmed me later in life.

I was one of these homeschool kids. I never learned anything. My school schedule, when I had one, was reading the bible or doing a chapter of one of those Christian textbooks. Most of them, decades out of date because my mom bought them second-hand. When I complained about this, she signed me up for an online school. She never checked in on me, made a schedule, or even helped me with my work. She only scolded me when it didn't get done. I regret not studying harder. But I was only 12 when it all started, so I didn't know much better. By the time high school came around, I was so lonely I became severely depressed. I had no sports, no extracurricular activities, and no friends. My family had moved away from our extended family so I couldn't even get any companionship from my grandparents. I had no siblings at the time either. It was me, my mom, and my dad. I cannot begin to describe how lonely and how scarring it is to spend 6 years all alone, with nothing but historically inaccurate textbooks to keep you company. Especially since my mom actually stopped bothering to buy new ones. I was still using the same curriculum from when I was 12. Recently, I studied extremely hard on Khan Academy. Starting from their 7th grade curriculum and onwards, I brought myself up to speed and took the ASVAB. I got a 94/99. My parents take credit for my score, saying that I get my intelligence from my dad. They did nothing. I did everything. I'm a survivor of this bullshit. I pushed through and studied on my own, but no one should have to go through what I did. We need to fix the regulation of homeschooling. It's the perfect abuse tactic. Fuck parents rights. A child's right to a proper education is so much more important.

Don't celebrate the death of Henry Kissinger and John completing his Bingo card -- celebrate the fact that Jimmy Carter outlived that monster and can now go home to Rosalynn.

I used to teach martial arts to schools. We had a large hall and each day a different school would bus their kids in. Thursday were the homeschool kids. They were completely bereft of certain skills. None of them had any idea what "form a line" meant. Even if you physically placed them in a spot in line, the second you let go of them, they would simply follow you. Each of them thought that everything the teachers said was a personal conversation with them. Imagine 20 kids all just telling you whatever popped into their heads at any moment while you are trying to instruct all of them.