My husband and I talk about this alot. The classrooms are bigger now than they were when we were younger. The classroom debates aren't as passionate because they can "google" the answer, rather than form an opinion. Our son is on a Robotics Team (the closest we came to robots was Number 5 and the Jetson's). There's a lot more pressure on testing. Math has changed drastically (and my dad told me the one thing about Math was it NEVER changed!LOL). I remember learning Presidents and state capitals and my kiddos haven't had that. I remember entire years being dedicated to different parts of history (the Civil War, the American Revolution, Greek Gods, Roman Empire, etc.) and that doesn't happen for my kiddos. We could bring baked goods to school, my kiddos cannot. My children seem to be growin up faster and have so much more access to information than I remember having.

Definitely much more technology today then I had.  In addition, they seem to have more homework from elementary on.  In addition, classes seem to move much faster.  I know that what my son learned in Trig last year far exceeded what I learned my junior year.

My 3rd grader just got home and I sat with him for 1 1/2 working on things.  Apparently the teacher doesn't think he's doing things neat enough so he was told to redo 2 sheets from previous days.  THen we practiced for spelling tests.  The biggest difference I see is the grades in elementary are based on weekly testing so if the kids aren't prepared they will fail.  Since the classes are so big, if your child is struggling at all they don't get the help they need from the teacher and  it's really put on the parent to help.  Between my 4 kids in school I sit for at least 3 1/2 hours every afternoon as a tutor on call.   

My child's is very much different because he is homeschooled. I was not. It wasn't originally my goal to homeschool but when he was reading before 3...I felt it was the best choice. I had prior experience working in schools and as a case manager. I do feel schools are different today and the current area we live in in part of  school district that is way too big and there are too many disadvantages. 

I find that my children had much more homework than I did. There seems to be an overall feeling of get everyone into the middle of the pack and make sure everyone passes the standardized tests. The children at the low end and the high end of the curriculum seem to suffer.

One other thing that I have noticed as a teacher is that my school pretty much only hires educators that have Master's Degrees. When I first began teaching more people had a Bachelor's Degree only. The education level of the staff is greater now!