There was a dancing monkey on last night's episode of Last Week with John Oliver, but probably not for the reasons you'd think. The monkey was used in a pep rally at a Texas school to pump up kids about standardized testing, and Oliver had something to say about it—namely, that a dancing monkey could get you excited about anything, even surgery or something as universally hated as standardized tests.
In this hilarious clip, Oliver skewered the mandatory test-taking that's happening in schools across the country, basically becoming every child in America's hero. He took on the lawmakers who supported initiatives like the No Child Left Behind Act and President Obama's Race to the Top, and the companies that write and grade the tests.
Oliver conceded this much: that behind all these tests are good intentions—like narrowing the achievement gap and making sure American kids are doing just as well as kids around the world. But it looks like neither of those things are happening—and, Oliver asked, do French kids really care about how many bubbles they're filling correctly? The clip is worth watching just to see Oliver impersonating an existentialist French schoolboy with a cigarette addiction.
Watch it above.
