I think there's some merit to APET, but I don't think it's an all-encompassing explanation and I don't think your proposal would make a huge impact. The reason I say the second part is because I don't know that trying to have education mimick entertainment is the best idea. Yes, it may engage more students, but it also alters the learning experience. You absorb information differently when you're readin than when you're watching a video. In the latter you're a passive observer, while in the former you need to be directly engaged with the learning material. I'm all for making video games themselves more educational. I loved all the information in Assassin's Creed II not just about historical figures but locations and famous buildings, but I don't think that's what our educational process should resemble.
As to factors that this theory doesn't take into account, the most obvious that stands out to me is poverty. Students in districts with lower funding test consistently lower than those who go to well-funded schools. Secondly, I believe that we are continually lowering standards. The length of books that are read seems to be far shorter than thirty or forty years ago, and I have heard more than a few teachers lament that students no longer read the classics in high school. Sometimes we are not even enforcing the standards we have in place. When I was in high school I managed to bypass the secondary language requirement by taking an autos class. I think that was a mistake, no matter what profession you go into a second language is a valuable skill not only in everyday practicality but in increasing retention ability to a degree, but in our educational system we've taken this ridiculous outlook that if it's hard, then just drop the students into some vocational class.
I also feel that education has become an ideoloigcal battlefield for many, and this is to the ultimate disadvantage of students. I understand if you want to tell your children at home that dinosaurs never existed, the earth is 2000 years old, and evolution is a fraud. I think it becomes a different matter, however, when you teach things such as that in a classroom. Like it or not, the educational system is supposed to aspire to some level of objectivity. Perhaps there isn't a complete level of certainty with some of the things that are taught, but they are the vast consensus by professionals in their respective fields. That is the essence of the scientific process and respected knowledge gathering, and by teaching children in a classroom to ignore overwhelming evidence because of religious beliefs is irresponsible. It embeds an attitude of total relativity in children, tells them that whatever subjective opinions they may have are just as valid as any opinions with actual substantiation.
Finally, I think you hit on part of the issue, which is getting children engaged. I know this is harder at younger ages, as children are in a developmental stage that doesn't readily allow for complex differentiation. However, I don't think this necessarily needs to impede engagement, you can still talk to children about the subjects that they might eventually study that might transfer to a profession they show interest in, you can still tell them the purpose of learning certain things instead of simply treating them like a piggy bank, into which you insert coins of knowledge.
In the later years this becomes easier. For one, it means not simply taking a cirriculum-based appraoch, it means in addition taking the time to critically engage students in all aubjects. This could mean speaking about geometry's utility in architecture, statistics' utility in Poly Sci or Sociology, or the long history of great philosophers and mathematics. I think it also means expanding the cirriculum, bringing entry level college courses into the high school cirriculum, and allowing those courses to bleed through into other high school courses. Critical engagement doesn't just meaning bringing the material into a medium that students are more familiar with, it means opening students' minds to new mediums that they aren't familiar with by showing them the scope of the material.
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