I'm currently a high school student taking five AP classes, and I can tell you that most of my AP classes just teach what people need to know on the AP test. I'd much rather take an Honors class than an AP class, but at my school Honors classes aren't offered when APs are. I learned most of what I know now before I even went to high school - I'm a victim of this educational system stratifying by age, and I can tell you that it didn't work for me.

The other thing that I see is that most of the people in my AP classes are diagnosed with ADHD and are put on Ritalin... to keep them paying attention in some lackluster classes. Ken Robinson's first TED talk says it a lot better than I can, but I do favor vocational tech and stratifying by ability, although I can see that that will open a whole new can of worms, such as parents pushing for their children to be top-tier.