Few subjects are safe from the witty British host, John Oliver, on HBO's Last Week Tonight. The former Daily Show correspondent has already tackled New Year's Eve and Fifty Shades of Grey and this past week, he took aim at standardized testing. As usual, he was right on the money.
Oliver starts off by showing a montage of videos produced by different schools that were made with the intention of getting students excited about sitting in a classroom for long periods of time and filling in answer bubbles (children dancing to the tune of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face," exchanging the chorus for "Test Taker Face," is just a sample of the madness). The host's main problem with standardized tests -- which is the same as most concerned parents -- is that there's too much pressure put on students who have to take them.
"Something is wrong with our system when we just assume a certain number of kids will vomit," he said, citing guidelines teachers have for when students get sick on their test booklet. "Tests are supposed to be assessments of skills, not a rap battle on 8 Mile Road."
Oliver spared no one during his rant. He ripped former President George W. Bush, whose No Child Left Behind Act bumped the amount of testing students would have to do every year. The host also went after publishing company Pearson, which he compared to the Time Warner Cable of the educational world.
"Either you've never had an interaction with them and don't care, or they've ruined your f**king life," he said.
Check out the hilarity below.
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