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I think you still need something to incentivise the best teachers to voluntarily sign up for the lowest performing classes. Obviously its way more prestigious to be the teacher with all the ivy league destined students than the teacher whose students are just trying to get set up for a community college or a blue collar apprenticeship. [This is not to say the latter cohort is less intelligent, capable, or important-- just less prestigious.]

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I see teaching these kids as a specialization in itself, so the incentive is to be a great 'turnaround' teacher, plus the pay should reflect that it is a difficult specialization.

The right answer is probably to pay the teachers of the problem kids more or adjust student teacher ratios- For example, with no behavior problems a single math teacher could probably handle instructing and grading 50 students, as this is the model in college calc.

For what it's worth, in New York City the Gifted & Talented classes are often larger for this reason. A 2nd grade G&T classroom where I was a student teacher had 30 students, for example; standard classes at the same school had ~20 students per class.

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