Young dumber?

In her new book, “The Age of American Unreason,” cultural critic Susan Jacoby tells of a dinner conversation with a student who was about to graduate with honors from Michigan State University in 2006. After Jacoby dropped a reference to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “fireside chats,” she watched as the student “looked absolutely blank” in response.

Shocking, but these days, par for the course.

A slew of new books, studies and films all tell a similar tale: Americans – especially young Americans – don’t know much about much. Overfed on self-esteem, pop culture and digital entertainment, students are starved for genuine literary, historical, scientific and mathematical knowledge, critics say.

A recent study by American Enterprise Institute researcher Rick Hess revealed that among 1,200 students surveyed:

•43 percent knew the Civil War was fought between 1850 and 1900;

•52 percent could identify the theme of “1984;”

•51 percent knew that the controversy surrounding Sen. Joseph McCarthy focused on communism.

But others say teens are working as hard as ever, tackling coursework their parents only dreamed of. Each time researchers and think tank types attack, the response from educators gets a bit wearier.

For lack of a better term, call it Dummy Fatigue.

“There is this kind of ‘Aren’t We Stupid?’ industry,” says Hess. “It’s a drumbeat: ‘Don’t we keep getting dumber?’ “

In addition to Jacoby’s best-seller, the latest evidence is the upcoming book “The Dumbest Generation” by Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein, as well as in Hess’ study.

It all drives Leslie Edwards nuts. “I get tired of hearing it,” says the Rochester, N.Y., high-school English teacher. “I look at my kids’ faces, and it’s not really an accurate portrayal of what exists.”

But numbers don’t lie, do they?

Then what to make of the huge growth in the number of teens taking college-level Advanced Placement courses? Enrollment is growing at 10 percent annually.

According to the College Board, which owns the AP program, 63 percent of college-bound seniors took four or more years of social sciences and history in 2007, up from 39 percent in 1987. The number passing AP U.S. history tests has risen nearly 200 percent since 1992.

“Students are coming in and are being held to a higher standard than they were 10 and 20 years ago,” says Trevor Packer, who oversees AP for the College Board.

And yet the percentage of 25- to 29-year-olds with high school diplomas has barely budged in nearly 20 years. Actually, says economist James Heckman, if you take a closer look, it peaked about 40 years ago and has dropped about five percentage points with no change in the gap between diplomas earned by white and minority students.

All this data suggest it is both the best of times and the worst of times. While the top students are exceeding expectations, the remainder are dragging the team down.

“At the high end, our best 5 percent to 15 percent of high school kids are pretty well educated,” says Chester Finn of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a think tank. “Those are the ones who go on to college and keep America the successful nation that it’s been.” But we’re “still doing a pretty crummy job” with the rest.

Author E.D. Hirsch, who for decades has championed a “core knowledge” curriculum heavy in history and literature, says the problem began far earlier than most people suspect. “I’ve come to realize that this was a slow march from the beginning of the 20th century,” he says.

He blames a K-12 education system that values “critical thinking” above content. It has led to “total incoherence” for most students from early on.

The education system also is focused less on facts and memorization than on analysis, says Wayne Camara, the College Board’s director of research. He graduated from high school in 1974 and recalls memorizing Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address.”

“I don’t think my kids have,” he says. “Rather than memorize it, they’ve had to learn to analyze it.”

Bauerlein, author of “The Dumbest Generation,” due in May, blames digital technology, which distracts kids in ways their parents could never imagine.

“When we were 17 years old, social life stopped at the front door,” says Bauerlein, 49. Now kids can continue their conversations online, on Facebook, by instant messaging or cell phone in heir bedrooms – all night. “Peer to peer contact … has no limitation in space or time.”

No wonder kids know less about the world, he says. Their focus on each other “won’t let the adult realities of history and civics through. What the mayor does with a city council meeting is not going to penetrate into what so-and-so did last week with his girlfriend.”