They've been doing that since the 11th Century[1] - if this were even vaguely true, your current average student intake would be somewhere around the level of planaria or possibly tardigrades. It's demonstrable rubbish.
[1] http://www.medievalists.net/2015/09/the-long-history-of-teac...
They also fail to mention that the 2003 report showed no decline except for Hispanics. Maybe, just maybe, immigration by people with non-English backgrounds was the cause, not textbooks? It'd be nice to at least see that discussed.
Which ignored the part immediately before that citing an 8 point rise in quantitative literacy between '92 and '03.
Also blatantly ignored the following sentence showing +6 for prose and +8 for document literacy for POC. And the one about Asian/Pacific Islanders getting +16 from '92 to '03.
It is a shoddy piece of work picking only those points that bolster their existing conclusion.
Would you consider them an unbiased source given their stated goal is to "support Christian educators by producing textbooks and materials that shape a biblical worldview"?
Actually, upon reading the whole article, this feels a lot more like the same millennium-old whining "kids aren't appreciating the same classics I did and therefore they're stupid idiots." Kids these days read and write a lot--text messaging, twitter, facebook, social media.
If you want to convince someone that it really is the case that people are getting dumber, you need to find references that don't read like the same age-old complaints: you need to show that it's dumber on an objective measure of intelligence, not "they don't show appreciation for the classics," which is what you usually find instead.
An alternative approach to writing is as a tool to examine one's own thoughts...and perhaps explain them to others. That is, writing can be a tool by which the writer comes to understand the subject rather than a means of teaching it to others. This is a bit more at odds with the idea that education is about filling up the empty bucket of a student's mind.
Just the other day my 3 year old was explaining to me how cars, tablet PCs and people all need different types of energy to function. I found that conversation to be far more interesting than half the discussions I have with peers of my own age.
I am sure you could find some specific examples which support your theory but my experience would suggest those examples are the exception rather than the norm.
You could make the argument that it is easier for kids to express their individuality than it ever has been but I think the credit for that belongs to the Internet and changing social attitudes rather than schooling (though maybe schools have become more intolerant to bullying than when I was young? That would also certainly help).
I'll just leave thus here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2815147/Why-trendy-t...
But it is pretty clear your stance on this is pretty far right so anything is going to seem too left wing for your liking. Case in point: you read the Daily Mail and Christian publications and take them at face value. If the issues were are prevalent as you pretend then you wouldn't be scraping the barrel with 5 year old reports in papers that have a terrible reputation for inaccuracies.
Anyhow, I said before that I didn't really want to get drawn into a debate about education - I have to endure enough ranting about it from my wife each night - so this is the last I'm going to say on the subject.
It doesn't happen. You're wrong. You're being very firm with your assertions, but they're based on something that doesn't happen.
Have a look at common core standards for English. Most of them have nothing to do with "expressing their individuality", but about introducing a topic, making an argument, and supporting it with evidence.