John Oliver, who has a regular show on HBO, devoted a big chunk of his program last night to explaining the frauds perpetrated by unregulated and unsupervised charter schools. He also reminds his viewers that the language of competition and choice is a hoax when talking about education. You will see charters opening and closing like shoe stores in a mall. You will see charter owners fattening their bank accounts at the expense of the children. You will see charter operators plagiarizing their applications from others.

Readers of this blog will see some familiar scams–in Philadelphia, Florida, and Ohio, for example–but even you might be surprised by some of the stories he shows and documents.

With enough time, he might have devoted an entire hour to the scams in California, Texas, Indiana, and elsewhere.

But the great thing about his show is that this is the first time that a…