Are we getting more stupid?

[Player1x3]

HappySqurriel said:

Player1x3 said:
Your average person today is billion times more educated than your average person 200 years ago, so we're not getting more stupid

As of 2007 in the United States, 20% of high-school graduates are classified as functionally illiterate and 50 Million Americans read at a grade 4 or grade 5 level. Certainly, the average person today is spending far more time in the education system but it can be argued that many of them are not more educated than people were a few generations ago.

My grand-father who was an orphan, left school in grade 4, educated himself through his life by constantly reading, and was able to do complicated matematics and engineering work to build some amazing devices in his shop; and with 8 more years of education the typical (median) high-school graduate is probably less educated than my grandfather was at a similar point in his life, and probably has a lower capacity for learning.

Key words being ''average'' and ''200 years ago''. And why use USA schools ?  Use Finnish or Japanese