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Students' SAT scores and rote knowledge - most notably in history - are dipping, while, somehow, their grades have never been higher. It's not just a confounding process for university admission officers as applications roll in, but also for ordinary people like you and me.

In an August 2001 interview with the Washington Post, Brian O'Reilly, the director of the College Board's SAT program, reiterated to those parents and students still in denial that "[w]hen the College Board re-centered SAT scores back in 1995, Verbal scores went up 70 points and Math scores about 25. So, if re-centering had not occurred, the current Verbal average of 506 would have been about 437 and the current Math average of 514 would have been about 494."

A survey conducted by the Center for Survey Research and Analysis at the University of Connecticut gave 81 percent of college seniors a D or F in their knowledge of American history. Among much else, the students could not identify words from the Gettysburg Address or even the basic principles of the Constitution. Their study found that college seniors often know less than freshmen about America's history, government, foreign affairs and economy. This means that most collegians are actually regressing in those areas while on campus.

How is this possible? Well, perhaps it's the courses being offered.

As Walter Williams, the economist, George Mason University professor and syndicated columnist, revealed in a column this summer, "At Occidental College in Los Angeles, a mandatory course for some freshmen is The Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie ... Johns Hopkins University students can enroll in a course called Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll in Ancient Egypt."

I wonder if Mom and Dad realize that tuition at these two schools in particular is over $40,000 per year.

As if these absurd courses weren't enough, fraudulent grading, or grade inflation, is out of control. For example, a Boston Globe study exposed that in June 2001, a record 91 percent of Harvard University students graduated with some type of honors (summa, magna, or cum laude). That means basically all A's at America's putative finest academic institution.

Williams rightfully noted, "I doubt whether these 'honor' students could pass a 1950 high school graduation examination." I personally doubt these "brilliant" minds could pass the pre-1990s test to become American citizens.

A friend of mine, now a senior economics major at a respectable four-year college in New York, recently said to me, "My roommate is really into socialism, whatever the heck that is."

How many 22-year-olds 30 years ago didn't know what socialism was?

Schools are undoubtedly inflating grades in order to make themselves and their students feel better, in a shallow sense. By inflating grades and giving everyone honors, recipients have the expectation that with enough "hard work" they will be given platitudes. There's no such guarantee in the world outside academia, and many parents are guilty of having this flawed expectation of their kids.

In a recent Associated Press story, a student and his Minneapolis-area high school were profiled. The student had an A-minus average, which only ranked him about in the middle of his senior class of 543. For people over age 30, doesn't that sound impossible?

Then, consider these stats, also from the AP story:

• The average high school GPA increased from 2.68 to 2.94 between 1990 and 2000.
• Almost 23 percent of college freshmen in 2005 reported their average grade in high school was an A or better. In 1975, the percentage was about half that.
• Of the 47,317 applications that UCLA received for this fall's freshman class, nearly 21,000 had GPAs of 4.0 or above.

Some high schools now have upward of 40 valedictorians, likely because administrators don't want to create distinctions between students or ruin anyone's self-esteem. That's a biggie in schools.

It's incredible how far removed from the real world public education is placing our children. But what else should we expect when those educating our kids are people who have spent their entire lives avoiding the real world?