73% of 2,500+ BBC Magazine readers who responded think Uranus is now the outermost planet. Ohmigod!

GCSE exam results set a new record. Um... yes, well that's been the case in every year bar one since the GCSE was introduced in 1988. Along with a gradual drift towards more coursework, more multiple-choice exams, continual narrowing of syllabi, and a reduction of pass marks to ludicrously low levels (16% for a Grade C in one Edexcel Maths paper). Not to mention a serious decline in the numbers of pupils taking subjects with concrete objectives and measurable standards, like modern foreign languages to be replaced by record numbers studying media, film and TV studies. Not that media studies can't be a rewarding and challenging course, but at the moment it isn't so at GCSE.

How did we get here, when few people who don't have a direct interest defend the current system? Inclusivity seems to be the excuse for easier exams, but social mobility in the UK is in serious decline and the proportion of working-class children who go on to university has increased only from 6% to 9% over the past 40 years. Easier exams don't make it equally easy for everyone to pass. If you're not the brightest, but are in a small, motivated class, with motivated parents who are among the 25% of parents who send their children to private tutors, its easy to be coached through an easy exam.

If on the other hand, you're in a poorly performing schools with poor teachers teaching disruptive classes and parents who don't give a toss - well, it doesn't matter how easy the exams are, does it?

Increasingly, independent schools are either opting out of GCSEs or avoiding the most disruptive parts of the national curriculum, such as it being impossible to study Physics and Chemistry without Biology at GCSE. So, as GCSEs are devalued further employers will set more and more stock by qualifications which state schools are more or less forbidden by law from offering.

Who benefits from the current malaise - not employers or academics, who no longer have a serious benchmark of assessing intellectual capacity, nor teachers who teach less rewarding courses, nor most pupils, especially if they're from poorer homes, nor society in general. I can only think of three groups who do - politicians, who get to announce ever higher pass rates every year, independent schools, who benefit from their increasing advantage in standards, and children who attend independent schools, who ditch much of their working-class competition for university places and jobs.

The road to equality in education is leading us through some very strange places.