Education in the modern age.

I won't have this quite right but I read somewhere last year that in the '50s we graduated from school armed with around 80% of all the knowledge we would need throughout life... today it's less than 20%.
While we do live in a more far-reaching and complex society these days, there's no denying our students are receiving less education than they were. A good proportion of year 10 students today don't know their times tables, have questionable reading and writing standards and do not speak their first language correctly let alone a second.
The idea that some are smarter than others (and therefore some are not) has become so unfashionable that in the interests of social equity and political correctness our kids are being dumbed down en masse.
Not to get on my high horse or anything.... ;-)
Response to:
What is school for? (Seth Godin’s Blog)
Thanks to Sabian Wilde for this reference