I remember going to my kids schools and noticing that the honor roll included about half the kids in the school. When I was in HS, only about 10% of the students made the honor roll. I think grade inflation is the problem.
In ghetto schools,you can almost be assured at least a C grade if you come to class on a regular basis and don't call the teacher a bitch.
The level of work in most of those schools is a travesty.A halfway motivated kid can get on the honor roll with very little true work accomplished and then end up getting a very rude awakening in college when truly difficult material is presented to them and they haven't been prepared nearly enough to grasp the material.
Yet they took mostly"college prep"classes in these schools.Problem is that even college prep classes demand very little at many schools.