As someone who is graduating from the IB program and who had previously taken honors, ironically enough, I see this as beneficial. The main value of public school is interacting with a diverse group of people, but in IB and honors the students were too (relatively speaking) anti-social and self-similar. In 9th grade I made more friends in my P.E class because it was more diverse and not in spite of it. The non-honors students also weren't dumb, they were distracted with enjoying their high-school experience which I find to be commendable.

Why not just make school harder but increase grade boundaries just like IB [1]. Additionally most of the IB students were self-learning, so its not like the school is doing much.

[1] https://www3.dpcdsb.org/STFXS/Documents/IB-2018-05_Grade_Bou...

I think a lot of the people who find this to be controversial are people who went to high-school pre-internet dominated learning, and who see honors as something necessary for "brighter" students to be able to succeed.