All started with Ronnie Reagan & cuts to education funding, which cuts have continued & increased since the canonization of Saint Ron.

More recently, "No Child's Left Behind",standardized testing foolishness and the demonization of teachers and their Godless Unions.

The parents of children now in school were the first fruits of the campaign to idiotize America; they neither value education or are themselves well educated, so the situation will only get worse.

This downward spiral has now afflicted us with the "Tea Party" morons, for our sins.

See also "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free" by Charles P. Pierce.