isnt part of this (and this could be under teachers considering your post but) the curriculum or the administrations problem? i mean, ive been in college for three years so this may have changed but in WA state, your freshman year was spent teaching you how to adjust to high school, sophomore year was spent teaching the fucking WASL (such a dumb fucking test), junior year was a combo of the Junior Research Paper and the PSATs, and senior year was spent teaching the SAT, ACT, and the Senior Project. now, i understand how the PSAT and SAT and ACT are all incredibly important as they are essentially the USAs version of a college entrance exam that other countries have. but, the curriculum in many classes isnt actually about math, science, history, or english... a LOT of time is spent on these crazy graduation requirements.
an example (and yes, Ben and some others will tell me not to do this, using personal experiences in an argument but whatever) is my high school had a academic portfolio, senior project, and junior research paper and they always told us "Colleges will look very hard into these things when you are applying". no College i have applied for asked about any of those except the research paper, and even then it was a History Prof of mine cause he wanted me to rewrite it to get it into some national history magazine (something like the Harvard Law Review for history majors) which i did..... one of my academic advisors here at college actually told me to burn my senior project and portfolio because i have no need for them anymore.