On the other hand, a lot of the more advanced math and science classes I took in high school apparently weren't even offered when my parents were in school. As such, I can't really say whether there's been a general decrease in the quality of education or if it's simply that the focus has changed.Besides, simply looking at the difficulty of the test - sure, I never took civics in 8th grade, but it doesn't look any more difficult than any test I did take in 8th grade. I mean, the content itself may be different, but the level of the content looks about on par with the level of content I did have in other classes when I was in 8th grade. While one could argue that schools are being dumbed down by not focusing on civics, at least looking at this test, I don't think they've been dumbed down in terms of not challenging students as much.