It is true; we as a nation are intentionally being dumbed down, but it isn't because we're naturally stupid. Lacking the proper stimulation our generation will prove to be one of the dumbest. Here's a book I think you will enjoy:
It's a collection of essays written by a public school teacher that left the system after being disillusioned. I think you'll find the process by which they're dumbing children down interesting (It's been going on since the 30s and it's working). Reading and self-education is the only form of mental salvation. Then again; anything universal, over a long period of time, to meet the needs of all customers will start to degrade in quality.
In 1882, fifth graders read these authors in their Appleton School Reader: William Shakespeare, Henry Thoreau, George Washington, Sir Walter Scott, Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Bunyan, Daniel Webster, Samuel Johnson, Lewis Carroll, Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and others like them. In 1995, a student teacher of fifth graders in Minneapolis wrote to the local newspaper, "I was told children are not to be expected to spell the following words correctly: back, big, call, came, can, day, did, dog, down, get, good, have, he, home, if, in, is, it, like, little, man, morning, mother, my, night, off, out, over, people, play, ran, said, saw, she, some, soon, their, them, there, time, two, too, up, us, very, water, we, went, where, when, will, would, etc. Is this nuts?"