Possibilities...
I think what Dave is saying could hold some serious weight. Additionally there is the idea of "dumbing down". Where the school will offer all sorts of "dumbed down" versions of classes, which will look good on paper, but don't actually prepare students for much. This concept is CLEARLY visible in the amount of AP classes that the CR high schools like to throw in, but then have grossly unqualified teachers teach the students. What can you learn if the person teaching the subject doesn't even understand what it's about? I took AP psych at Wash my senior year, that class was WAY off base and in no way prepared us to take the AP exam, or understand what college "psych 101" was going to be like. I took AP micro and macro econ at Kennedy my senior year and I question if the teacher even knew what economics was, he made me HATE economics, and now it's one of my majors, I love it. I know for a fact that the only chem teacher that is actually board certified and qualified to teach AP Chem teaches at Kennedy, yet there are AP chem classes taught at Washington and Jefferson. After I graduated, in order to "catch up" with Washington, I know that Kennedy added about 9 more AP classes, which were taught just by random teachers... most of which have degrees in fields dealing in no way with the content that they are required to teach at a college level. One such class was AP Spanish, taught by a teacher (Mrs. Aldrich) that was so incredibly unqualified that they had to PROMOTE her out of her teaching position because the students were getting solid 1's on the AP exam, and as such prompted major parental and post-graduate student complaint, how insane is that? The fact is there is a serious nepotism problem in the CR School District (Dr. Plagman married to Dr. Wilcynski at Kennedy, Mrs. Aldrich married to another administration official, the managerial structure in the school system reads like a family tree) which prevents new and better ideas from being implemented, and results in the promotion of unqualified people to decision-making positions of even greater power. The solution to some of this could be, as it is in other states, to require students to take the AP exam if they're in the AP class, and that score determines not only the students’ grade, but the teachers as well. Just a few possibilities. On a final tangent, rewards... Rewards and awards for everything diminish real accomplishment and real expectations/goals, remember...

Students tend to rise to the level of expectation, good or bad.