This is the problem with the world.

Girl was beat up in bus for having good grades

This is a common occurrence, and I think more common in "ghetto" areas. I attribute the difference in grades/test scores between different schools/socioeconomic groups to hatred for success and on a much smaller scale, teachers. A good teacher does wonders for kids, but often the teacher can not teach due to the kids trying to keep smart kids down. My mom taught at Riverdale High, a school in Clayton county. She often ran into kids that were really smart, but they could not show it because they would get beat up, picked on, or lose all of their friends.  I was lucky to have a school when I was growing up (SAIS-R) that encouraged kids to learn and we ended up competing to be better, and not competing to equalize. We had some problems with kids getting jealous, but they were mostly minor. At Eagles Landing you had to mostly hide that you were smart, but in the honor's class circles it wasn't that bad.