I'm a lawyer by training but have always been a close observer of classrooms. Many of my friends have been in education for over thirty years. Their stories are much the same. It's a struggle getting 12th graders to comprehend what used to be taught to 8th graders.
Students are more violent than they used to be.
Sexuality comes too early now and interferes with a student's school development. Drugs seem to be everywhere. Some research on my part disclosed that my teacher friends were quite accurate in their observations. The National Assessment of Educational Progress in 1986 reported that students at all levels are now more deficient than students used to be in higher order thinking skills, abstract reasoning, and problem solving. Low achievement test scores of current students only tell part of the story.