Have schools fallen in their quality?

I recently found on the internet a story on an 8th grade test that was given in 1892. You can find this test on the internet if you look around for it. I looked at it, and in my opinion, today most adults wouldn't be able to pass this test, much less 8th graders. The questions demand a knowledge of history, grammer, logic, and common-sense that is lacking today, although to be fair, I'm sure our students today have better outfits and more knowledge of MTV. When I look at a test like this and think about the results it would generate today, I question our curent educational system- how is it that we expect less now from our college students than the people of 1892 expected from an 8th grader? Are Americans as a society generally dumber today than we used to be? Probably not in every way, but I feel in many key ways, our society is less intelligent than it used to be, and I pin this on the liberal bias of the educational establishment. I don't pin it on teachers, tenure, pay, or anything like that- I pin it on the increasing and increasingly sophisticated liberal indoctrination that occurs in our school, and is the process that is making our students less intelligent. If we spent more time openly attacking that liberal bias in our schools, we might do some good.