I have been doing some work on some lawsuit stuff recently, and I have been told repeatedly that the average juror is absolutely less intellectually capable than they used to be. In the 90's, the writing level to use for expert reports was a 6th-7th grade level. Now, if you are a court expert, you should be writing and speaking at a ~3rd grade level, and I have been recently told that even this level seems to be beyond the average juror.

This is also information from a group of people who are highly incentivized not to lie to you. Unlike school officials who are incentivized to say that students are doing better than they are and clout-seeking education researchers, the question here is how to speak persuasively, and there is no judgment (well, they are lawyers, there is equal contempt for everyone). They also do enough science (mock juries, polling, etc.) to get a decently accurate picture beyond the level of "anecdata."

While the top students are doing fine, they honestly always will do fine. The bottom 90% of students is doing worse in terms of actual education that makes it to their adult life in the current educational model than they were doing before. Whether that is due to a culture shift or a change to new supposedly-evidence-based education methods is not clear to me, but it is very clear that outcomes from schools are getting notably worse.