During his closing monologue on Friday’s edition of his HBO show “Real Time,” comedian Bill Maher stated that public schools are “diploma mills that allow students to graduate without demanding the kids know basic” knowledge and Catholic schools are outperforming them because they aren’t safe spaces for nonsense.
Maher began by discussing violence in public schools, which he blamed on bad parenting that has “made education impossible.”
He added, “I’m sure there are parents seeing this and saying, that’s not us and this isn’t our experience. True, not all schools are violent and scary. But they are all diploma mills that allow students to graduate without demanding the kids know basic sh*t. … George W. Bush asked, ‘Is our children learning?’ Well, it’s only gotten worse. Only 33% of U.S. children can read at a level of proficiency. If you’re attending an American high school now, that’s about one-third. So, I’m not surprised that homeschooling is America’s fastest-growing form of education, and not just with weirdo Christian families who make their daughters wear a bonnet. To millions of parents, anything is better now than public education, and that includes Catholic school. In 1970, only 2.7% of the kids who went to Catholic school were not Catholic. Now it’s 22%. Catholic school eighth graders are two full grade levels above public school kids, because their school isn’t a safe space for f*cking off. They’re told, no, you can’t be on your phone here and your pronouns are shut up and sit down. How f*cked up is this country that to get a no-bullsh*t education now, you have to go to the place that’s completely based on bullsh*t?”
Maher concluded, “What we need in this country is a chain of non-Catholic Catholic schools. And since many celebrities have opened their own schools…well, now I’m thinking of doing it and opening Bill Maher’s Catholic school. It’s like traditional Catholic school, just without the religion and the molesting. At Bill Maher’s Catholic school, we do school old school with a curriculum called school classic. Rule one: no phones, all day, no exceptions, not just so the kids aren’t distracted when they’re trying to learn, but also because it forces hovering parents to leave them the f*ck alone for eight hours. You’re their parent, not their probation officer. Other rules include: No making up a disorder that allows your kid to get more time on the test, we call that by its original name, cheating. No participation ribbons, no turning in anything late, no vaping, no emotional support animals, and, of course, if a student doesn’t maintain a C average or higher, absolutely no sex with the teacher.”
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