If anything, if that was actually true, it'd be a colossal indictment of prior generations of administrators and leaders demolishing the quality of education for those who followed. So for GP's sake, I hope they're actually wrong about math skills being weaker among the current gen.

SAT scores have a trend of being inflated over time because they are dropping.

There is no way the average college bound student from the 70’s doesn’t score higher on every standard subject than a contemporary one.

I don't think so, but ok, look at college acceptance rates then. Pick some semi-top one like UCLA https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/trends/university-of-c...

UCLA being flooded with applications doesn’t mean anything in this context

Every high-end school getting lots of applications does mean more students are seriously trying for college, and yes, the same student in 1975 would have a harder time being admitted to UCLA today even if it's just because they're flooded.

You could also look at college graduation rates. https://educationdata.org/number-of-college-graduates What trend shows that 1970s kids were better educated or harder working?