My students are know nothings

This guy sounds like a bit of a grumpy old man, but apart from that, this appears to be an ad for his company's product:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Learning_Test

This has always been the problem with folks in all levels of education.

They view the world with glasses looking backward applying them to the present and future. (A form of if all you have is a hammer)

If yesteryear the rote learning curriculum was about knowing Who was X and what did Y do then they’ll expect that everybody coming in today should know that verbatim and convince you it’s in your future’s best interest to commit your memory to it too.

Rarely does life work that way. More so in real (western) life, it’s all a game and you score high if you can find how to cheat the game or carve a niche for yourself.

A society that punishes heavily for failure can’t expect that people would emerge well rounded. It can absolutely expect that people would be professional gamers.

If they're superb test takers (his assessment) then they'd have all those answers if they had been drilled into them in the context of "traditional" high school history classes. But memorizing facts about ancient history doesn't teach critical thinking either.

Ancient Greece and Guy Fawkes are the most important things for teenagers to learn about?

Seems like a very limited view of what knowledge is important.

Perhaps knowing how Socrates died and who fought in the Peloponnesian war just isn't as important as this guy thinks it is anymore?

Physics, chemistry, and biology are far greater gifts than the fictional tales and speeches from people long dead, if simply that something of use might be made from them.