Americans are not getting dumber

These past few weeks The Atlantic has been beating out The Economist and Slate as my favorite publication.

Today's obvious but undertold story, American kids aren't getting dumber; they just were never that smart.

Too many people talk as if American kids today are not meeting up to the standards set by previous generations. Direct comparisons generally show that they are almost exactly the same however. For example college graduation rates have fallen behind many other countries. This is not because less Americans graduate college though. As many graduate college as at any point in our history. Just other countries have advanced faster than us. That isn't good news, but it is hardly reason to go into freak out mode though. We are at least educated enough to figure out ways to continue to improve our lifestyle.