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TV host John Oliver is essentially a court jester for people who consider themselves political and cultural elites; the topics he addresses reflect their concerns. So when he does an extended take on homeschooling, you can assume that, after years of innovation and growth, DIY education is on the radar of the tut-tutting class. And when he accepts homeschooling as a potentially beneficial practice, but one that needs more oversight from the right people, you know anti-homeschoolers are in retreat, fighting a rearguard action to maintain a degree of control because it’s too late to abolish a practice they dislike.

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Δ “Getting To Be Homeschooled Can Be Transformative”

“By one estimate, there are now around 2 million children being homeschooled in this country, and parents can choose that for all sorts of reasons,” the host allowed on the October 8 episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. “Maybe their kids have social or health problems, or disabilities that aren’t being accommodated. Maybe they’re families with legitimate fears about school safety, or who are in the military and move around a lot. And there’s also a growing number of black parents opting to homeschool due to whitewashed curriculums and zero-tolerance policies in schools that disproportionately criminalize their kids at an early age. So, there are a lot of reasons to do it. And the fact is, for some kids, getting to be homeschooled can be transformative.”

That’s quite a shift from a few years ago when Harvard Law School’s Elizabeth Bartholet penned a sniffy Arizona Law Review piece favoring a “presumptive ban” on homeschooling.

Oliver showed a brief clip of Victoria, a Detroit girl who described switching to homeschooling as “just like a kind of like a sunshine, like the clouds opening a little bit.”

But then we get the cautionary note. Who Is In Charge Here?

“The ceiling of how good homeschooling can be is admittedly very high,” Oliver added. “But the floor of how bad it can get is basically nonexistent. Because to an extent you may not realize, in many parts of the country, homeschooling is essentially unregulated.”

“Let’s start with the fact there’s a lot we don’t know about homeschooled kidsfrom exactly how many there are, to what they’re learning,” he added ominously.

Who is this “we” who doesn’t know how many homeschooled kids there are or what they’re learning? Because I’m pretty sure those kids’ parents have a handle on things. I don’t know where John Oliver sends his kids to school, but that doesn’t keep me up at night. Of course, I may not be part of “we.”

“In most states, there is no oversight, and no evaluation by anyone of the academic program and of students’ progress,” Oliver further frets. To show that’s bad, he points to a clip of Michael Donnelly of the Home School Legal Defense Association describing his kids dissecting specimens in the kitchen.

“Are kitchens the best lab for this kind of thing?” Oliver asks in horror.

Hard counter surfaces that are easy to cleansounds pretty sensible. Would he prefer to use the living room coffee table? This is silly. My homeschooled son used the kitchen counter for dissection, too, as well as for chemistry and other science lessons. Lots of families do, as evidenced by an industry selling homeschoolers lab equipment and dissection specimens.

Oliver continues from there, though the discourse never rises above the level of some people I don’t like are choosing homeschooling for reasons with which I disagree. He points to the religious nature of some publishers of crappy textbooks (as well as a tiny group of Nazi parents who self-published teaching materials because there was so little demand for Hitler-themed readers), but families can take them or leave them, unlike the spun texts assigned in public schools.

“The books have the same publisher. They credit the same authors. But they are customized for students in different states, and their contents sometimes diverge in ways that reflect the nation’s deepest partisan divides,” The New York Times’ Dana Goldstein wrote in 2020 of history textbooks produced for state-level buyers in California and Texas, “customized to satisfy policymakers with different priorities.”

Then, Oliver huffs: “In many states parents don’t ultimately have to teach their kids anything at all.” Apparently, Nobody Is in Charge of Public Schools, Either

Uh huh. A RAND Corporation survey of public school teachers finds that “since 20192020 it’s become more common for math teachers to skip math content that’s covered by their state’s math standards.” Test scores fell off a cliff in recent years, accelerated by public schools’ failures during pandemic shutdowns (“a majority of states saw scores decline for fourth- and eighth-graders in mathematics and reading between 2019 and 2022,” according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics). Many schools (we’re looking at you, Los Angeles Unified School District) promote underperforming kids anyway, with a nothing-to-see-here attitude. Who isn’t teaching “anything at all?”

That public schools can be terrible is obvious from Oliver’s joking allusion to his own misery in school, as well as the clip of Victoria, who was so delighted to find “sunshine” in exiting government offerings for DIY education. Victoria is in good company. Families Stepped Up When the Pros Fumbled

“In the first full school year after the onset of the pandemic, K-12 public school enrollment in the U.S. fell by more than a million students,” according to an Urban Institute report published in February of this year. “And these enrollment losses persisted through the 2021-22 school year.” By contrast, private school enrollment increased by 4.3 percent and homeschool enrollment increased by 30 percent.

“To put this in perspective,” adds the Urban Institute report, “in the 22 locations with homeschool data, K-12 public school enrollment fell by 710,513 students while private school enrollment increased by 102,847 students. The corresponding increase in homeschool enrollment was 184,047 students.”

Who regulates education? Parents yanking kids from failing public schools and choosing alternatives, like homeschooling, have taken on that regulatory role. They clearly care more about the responsibility than “professional” educators neglecting standards and promoting kids they haven’t taught.

The flood of families looking for something better is why John Oliver put on his concerned face over homeschooling. But the flood is also why he has to acknowledge the legitimate concerns of homeschoolers, because the ranks of DIY-educating families have grown beyond early adopters to include people of all sorts of backgrounds and motivations, including some who might watch his show.

That a court jester for self-appointed elites is reduced to fretting over worst-case scenarios among homeschoolers while glossing over public school failures shows just how far battle lines have shifted between families and control freaks who, just recently, pushed to ban the practice.

For an (admittedly aging until I update it) list of homeschooling resources, check here.

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Penn State fires Franklin amid midseason free fall

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October 12, 2025

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Penn State fires Franklin amid midseason free fall

Oct 12, 2025, 02:02 PM ET

Penn State has fired coach James Franklin after 12 seasons, the school announced Sunday.

Franklin is owed more than $49 million, according to his contract. It’s the second-biggest buyout in college football history behind only Jimbo Fisher’s $76 million buyout from Texas A&M.

Associate head coach Terry Smith will serve as the Nittany Lions’ interim head coach for the remainder of the season, the school said.

Less than a year removed from an appearance in the College Football Playoff semifinals, Franklin’s program appeared to hit a new low when the Nittany Lions traveled out to Los Angeles two weeks ago only to lose to UCLA, a team that not only was winless but hadn’t previously held a lead all season.

The woes flew back home with the team to Penn State, and with them came “Fire Franklin!” chants at Beaver Stadium on Saturday. The Nittany Lions dropped their second straight home game, and third overall, when they fell to Northwestern 22-21 in front of a stunned crowd at Happy Valley.

With the two losses, Penn State became the first team since the FBS and FCS split in 1978 to lose consecutive games while favored by 20 or more points in each game, according to ESPN Research.

In Saturday’s defeat to the Wildcats, the Nittany Lions committed six penalties for 71 yards in the first half alone. They simply could never get out of their own way, and that was before quarterback Drew Allar suffered a season-ending injury in the fourth quarter.

Earlier in the season, when the losing streak began against Oregon at Happy Valley, Franklin fell to 4-21 at Penn State against AP top-10 opponents, including 1-18 against top-10 Big Ten teams.

Franklin’s .160 winning percentage against AP top-10 teams is tied for the third-worst record by a coach (minimum 25 games) at a single school since the poll era began in 1936, according to ESPN Research.

Hired in 2014 in the wake of Bill O’Brien’s departure for the NFL, Franklin inherited a team still feeling the effects of unprecedented NCAA sanctions in the wake of Jerry Sandusky’s sexual-abuse crimes.

Armed with relentless optimism and an ability to recruit, Franklin’s program regularly churned out NFL-level talent, from Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley to Green Bay Packers edge rusher Micah Parsons. Franklin guided the Nittany Lions to the 2016 Big Ten title and a seemingly permanent spot in the rankings.

There was hope this fall might be the season when Penn State would finally break through and win its third national championship and first since 1986. Yet after three easy wins during a light nonconference schedule, the Nittany Lions crumbled.

Athletic director Pat Kraft said the school owes Franklin an “enormous amount of gratitude” for leading the Nittany Lions back to relevance but felt it was time to make a change.

“We hold our athletics programs to the highest of standards, and we believe this is the right moment for new leadership at the helm of our football program to advance us toward Big Ten and national championships,” Kraft said.

The move will cost Penn State at a time the athletic department has committed to a $700 million renovation to Beaver Stadium. The project is expected to be completed by 2027.

Former athletic director Sandy Barbour signed Franklin to a 10-year contract extension worth up to $85 million in 2021. According to terms of the deal, Penn State will have to pay Franklin’s base salary of $500,000, supplemental pay of $6.5 million and an insurance loan of $1 million until 2031.

It’s a steep price, but one the university appears willing to pay to find a coach who can complete the climb to a national title.

“We have the best college football fans in America, a rich tradition of excellence, significant investments in our program, compete in the best conference in college sports and have a state-of-the-art renovated stadium on the horizon,” Kraft said. “I am confident in our future and in our ability to attract elite candidates to lead our program.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Hoosiers vault to No. 3 in poll; Texas, USC back in

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October 12, 2025

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Hoosiers vault to No. 3 in poll; Texas, USC back in

  • Associated Press

Oct 12, 2025, 02:10 PM ET

Indiana moved up to No. 3 in the Associated Press college football poll Sunday for its highest ranking in program history, while Texas and USC were among five teams entering the Top 25 after eight ranked teams — three of them previously unbeaten — lost over the weekend.

Ohio State and Miami remained the top two teams while the Hoosiers earned a four-spot promotion for their 10-point win at then-No. 3 Oregon. No. 4 Texas A&M and No. 5 Ole Miss traded places after the Aggies’ 17-point home win over Florida and the Rebels’ three-point home win over Washington State.

The Buckeyes strengthened their hold on No. 1 with a solid road win against then-No. 17 Illinois and received 50 first-place votes, 10 more than last week. Miami, which was idle, earned 13 first-place votes, and Indiana got the other three.

Texas A&M has its highest ranking in a regular season since it was No. 3 in September 1995.

Alabama moved up two spots to No. 6 and was followed by Texas Tech, Oregon, Georgia and LSU. Oregon dropped five spots and has its lowest ranking in 20 polls since it was No. 8 in September 2024.

Indiana’s groundbreaking run under second-year coach Curt Cignetti has been one of the biggest stories in college football since last season. The Hoosiers went into the Oregon game 0-46 on the road against top-five teams and, before Sunday, had never been ranked higher than No. 4. Their three first-place votes are their most in a poll since they got the same number when they were ranked No. 6 on Nov. 5, 1945.

Oklahoma plunged eight spots to No. 14 with its first loss, 23-6 to Texas. The Longhorns were the preseason No. 1 team, but a season-opening loss at Ohio State and Week 6 loss at Florida dropped them out of the Top 25.

In beating the rival Sooners, the Longhorns held a top-10 opponent without a touchdown for the first time since 1979 and reentered the poll at No. 21. It was Texas’ first win of the season against a ranked opponent, and another won’t be on the schedule for at least three weeks.

Missouri, which started 5-0, fell two spots to No. 16 after its three-point home loss to Alabama.

No. 20 USC, ranked twice in September, returned to the rankings on the strength of its 18-point home win over Michigan.

No. 23 Utah is back after a three-week absence following a 32-point win over Arizona State.

No. 24 Cincinnati beat Central Florida at home for its fifth straight win and is ranked for the first time since 2022.

No. 25 Nebraska came from behind to beat Maryland on the road and has its first ranking of the season. It is the first time since the 2013 and 2014 seasons that the Cornhuskers have been ranked in consecutive seasons.

Five teams — Michigan (15), Illinois (17), Arizona State (21), Iowa State (22) and Florida State (25) — dropped out of the poll, marking the most turnover in a regular-season poll since seven teams fell out on Oct. 2, 2022.

CONFERENCE CALL

SEC (10): Nos. 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17, 21
Big Ten (5): Nos. 1, 3, 8, 20, 25
Big 12 (4): Nos. 7, 15, 23, 24
ACC (3): Nos. 2, 12, 18
American (2): Nos. 19, 22
Independent (1): No. 13

RANKED VS. RANKED

No. 5 Ole Miss (6-0) at No. 9 Georgia (5-1): Judging by their close call against Washington State, the Rebels might have been looking ahead to this one. They have lost six straight in Athens since 1996.

No. 10 LSU (5-1) at No. 17 Vanderbilt (5-1): The Tigers have won 10 straight in the series. Both teams will be ranked in this matchup for the first time since 1947.

No. 11 Tennessee (5-1) at No. 6 Alabama (5-1): This game is a Top 25 matchup for the fifth straight year. Both teams are coming off hard-fought, three-point wins.

No. 20 USC (5-1) at No. 13 Notre Dame (4-2): High stakes in this storied series with both teams clinging to playoff hopes.

No. 23 Utah (5-1) at No. 15 BYU (6-0): First Top 25 matchup in this one since 2009. Last year, the Cougars benefited from a questionable fourth-down defensive holding penalty before kicking a field goal with 4 seconds left for a 22-21 win.

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High-profile ’27 recruits pull Penn State pledges

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October 12, 2025

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High-profile '27 recruits pull Penn State pledges

  • Eli LedermanOct 12, 2025, 04:14 PM ET

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      Eli Lederman covers college football and recruiting for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 2024 after covering the University of Oklahoma for Sellout Crowd and the Tulsa World.

Penn State suffered an immediate hit on the recruiting trail Sunday, will a slew of recruits decommitting in the aftermath of the school’s decision to fire head coach James Franklin following 12 seasons with the program.

Less than an hour after Franklin was fired, four-star 2027 recruit Kemon Spell, the No. 1 running back in the 2027 cycle and the No. 15 player overall in the ESPN Junior 300, decommitted from the Nittany Lions, sources told ESPN.

Two other ESPN Junior 300 recruits — offensive tackle Layton Von Brandt (No. 35 overall) and cornerback Gabriel Jenkins (No. 242) — also announced Sunday that they’d be decommitting from Penn State’s 2027 recruiting class upon news of the coaching change.

With four-star wide receiver Khalil Taylor (No. 66 overall) decommitting on Friday, a once-promising Nittany Lions class in the 2027 cycle no longer holds a single pledge.

As for the 2026 class, which entered Sunday ranked 17th nationally, three-star wide receiver Lavar Keys is the lone prospect to decommit in the immediate wake of Franklin’s exit. However, it is suddenly vulnerable less than two months out from the December early signing period.

High-profile commits from the SC Next ESPN 300 include wide receiver Davion Brown (No. 71 overall), offensive tackle Kevin Brown (No. 80) and running Messiah Mickens (No. 135), as well as quarterback pledge Troy Huhn (No. 186), and they could attract significant flip interest from across the country over the remainder of the cycle as Penn State navigates its post-Franklin future.

“We believe this is the right moment for new leadership at the helm of our football program to advance us toward Big Ten and national championships,” Penn State athletic director Patrick Kraft said in a statement.

The Nittany Lions consistently recruited among the top programs in the Big Ten across Franklin’s tenure, topping out with the nation’s No. 4 class in the 2018 cycle, when Penn State signed five-stars Micah Parsons and Justin Shorter.

The program finished in the top 15 of ESPN’s recruiting rankings in each of the past four cycles with quarterback Drew Allar and running backs Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton — all members of the program’s 2025 roster — among the top additions over that span.

The school announced Sunday that associate head coach Terry Smith will serve as Penn State’s interim head coach for the remainder of the season. Riding a three-game losing streak, the Nittany Lions (3-3) travel to face Iowa in Week 8.

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