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Bluto Blutarsky has nothing on the kids today. Come to think of it, he had nothing on the kids 25 years ago, when the National Commission on Excellence in Education released "A Nation at Risk" and a reform movement was born. Nearly three decades on, the United States remains mired in essentially the same education crisis. Want proof? A new report by the American Enterprise Institute and Common Core finds that the nation is "still at risk," as many of the nation's high school lack a basic knowledge of history, civics and literature. Such knowledge is an indispensable part of citizenship.

The report's results are as depressing as they are depressingly familiar. Nearly a quarter of American 17-year-olds surveyed couldn't identify Adolf Hitler; 10 percent thought Hitler was a munitions manufacturer. More than a quarter thought Christopher Columbus sailed after 1750. Fewer than half could place the Civil War in the correct half-century (an outcome that hasn't changed in 20 years.) A third didn't know that the Bill of Rights guarantees the freedom of speech and religion. Half had no idea what the Renaissance was. And so on. Overall, the 1,200 17-year-olds Common Core surveyed earned a "D" for their knowledge of history and literature.

USA Today has the story. Readers can take a short quiz from the survey and test their knowledge, or take heart that the kids are reportedly working harder than ever to meet higher standards.

So, has anything changed since "A Nation at Risk" rocked the country in 1983? Or is it true, as one of the aforementioned USA Today pieces suggests, that this notion of a "dumb-and-dumber" generation is a lot of hooey? It's complicated (naturally). According to the story:

(The) 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% to 15% 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.

Clearly, chronic ignorance is harder to eradicate than small pox. The Common Core study reminds us that U.S. schools continue to flail about, looking for ways to educate a massively diverse population of millions of kids, with limited success. It's an open question whether, after so many years and so much effort, we can do anything about it. I'm as solutions-oriented as the next fellow, so here's my suggestion: Just keep muddling through.