What is the thinking behind this? Is this similar to what was happening in the Bay Area where people took issue with some racial group not being perfectly represented in advanced classes so they scrapped them altogether?
There's resistance towards "creaming" elite students out of classrooms, as it can increase a teacher's workload: all the students who require zero assistance and could possibly assist their peers are now removed from class, and replaced with different students who will require more of the teacher's attention, reducing individual attention on students who need help.
There's also some equity concerns, where there's reluctance to invest additional personnel and administrative overhead on students who are "going to be fine no matter what" and would rather see those additional resources towards students who are struggling - lots of this is based on the belief that low-SES students are less likely to be part of any gifted/honors program compared to high-SES students.
Edit: And finally, there's the cynical data-driven reason that underscores this, where if you need to maximize the number of students who demonstrate reading/math proficiency, you need to pull as many students as possible over the line - once they're over the line you can "ignore" them and focus on getting others over the line. Schools unfortunately aren't measured by how they serve their most dedicated students.
I probably would have failed out of high school instead of almost failing if I didn’t have access to AP classes. And I’m fortunate AP classes were based on test scores and not grades for that school. Those classes were the only interesting classes for me. So I hate the idea of them not being an option. But I also would have benefitted a lot from being put into a position to mentor another student on a topic they didn’t understand. Hard to say which would have benefited me more.