Maybe Department of Education should be abolished

There is a lot of discussion about Elon Musk and President Donald Trump eliminating the U.S. Department of Education. You will get a different viewpoint from each person you talk to. However, in any event, my opinion is that at least it needs a big overall and reduction in staff. The reason is that they have 4,000 employees in the Department of Education in Washington, D.C. 

I am a numbers guy so why do they need that many? What do they do? One article says most are involved in student loans, others in distributing money to the states, and others setting up national programs. Sounds reasonable but at the same time, the U.S. continues to fall down the ladder against other countries in knowledge learned, we used to be near the top, now one article says we have dropped out of the top 20. And sadly, it is getting worse each year. With these results, sounds to me as if they aren't doing their jobs. And get this, their median salary (just as many above as below, is $138,500 a year. How much do you make? All this while supposedly the average teacher salary in D.C. is about $78,500 a year. So the adminstors are making a lot more money than the teachers. 

So it appears Musk and Trump are right, do we even need it? Or have it at a much smaller scale, and pay cuts. Remember it is you and me that are paying for all this. What do you think?

ROGER GREGORY

Priest River