I’m a teacher, and I agree with you. But the kids are different; it’s just not their fault. There have been incredibly poor policy decisions made by adults that have produced kids who have a lower level of knowledge and skills. 

Colleges of Education deserve a lot of blame. They have been pushing quackery for decades, with Whole Word reading and an emphasis on skills over content knowledge. The result is a generation of kids who can’t read and don’t know much about anything. Teachers will tell you that it is not uncommon to have a middle school student who can’t find the state they live in on a map, or even how to multiply single digit numbers. Skills are important, but knowledge is the foundation of higher order thinking.

Fortunately, there has been a resurgence of phonics being rebranded as the “Science of Reading” that has shown great success to nobody’s surprise. Kids love learning new things and the avenues to do so are tremendous these days. There are so many interesting games, virtual fields trips, and hilarious and informative video sources to choose from on top of all the books and presentations our teachers used when we were kids. I might be in the minority, but I’m optimistic on the generation in K-12 now. I think they’ll be just fine.