The post you are reporting:
This really doesn't surprise me at all. But I'm not sure how you gauge intelligence or worth of knowledge in this one-dimensional way. I don't think that any 'fact' of 'piece of information' is absolutely useless but surely schools and parents (the ultimate educationalists) should be interested in promoting the ability to deal with information. We have to be more contextual about education and just because we know something, we shouldn't assume that someone else, who doesn't, collectively knows less.
All the things 'The Times' has listed here, I got taught a primary school, but then we didn't have a National Curriculum to follow that includes ICT, or tests to pass to prove the worth of the school and teachers (of course this has nothing to with demographic *cough*). My son (4) knows some of this planet stuff already because I told him but this doesn't make him smart and I don't care if they don't teach it to him at school. He has a lot more to grapple with than I did, as I did compared to my Dad.... for instance and extra 22 years worth of history and modern computers not just 2bit BBCs. I will fill in the other gaps if he wants me to and surely that's my job.
Millions of people are doing jobs today that weren't even invented when I went for careers advice just 15 years ago. I'm pretty sure the people who have these jobs didn't have to (and don't have to) know who Neil Armstrong is. The point is that if they had to, they would be able to.
This is the sort of topic that public school types use as a kind of criticism of the state school system (as this journalist probably is a product of this and is at least the agenda of the Times) but then: "Hey that's OK because us jolly good chaps in independent schools didn't have to follow the National Curriculum because we're here because our parents could afford it, making us exempt from the 'free market' Thatcherite approach to education"
Bern who went to school 135 years ago surely never got taught about Churchill or Armstrong, is this a failing? The amount of information in this wonderful world increases every second, but the school day remains the same length!