Cutting Class: What If We Fired the U.S. Department of Education (and Gave the Money to Teachers Instead)?

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March 31, 2025

Written by Frank Glassner, CEO Veritas Executive Compensation Consultants

There’s a rising chorus among political hopefuls demanding the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education. And by "rising chorus," I mean the usual campaign trail kabuki: fiery soundbites for the base, followed by legislative amnesia once the balloons drop.

But let’s suspend cynicism for just a moment and ask a radical question:

What if they actually have a point—not ideologically, but mathematically?

This isn't a libertarian fever dream or a populist rage-click. This is math. Cold, rational, soul-draining, budget-line-item math.

Let’s crunch it.

$268 Billion in the Budget. $10 Billion in Actual Fat.

The Department of Education's 2024 budget clocks in at $268 billion. Sounds enormous, right? Until you realize it's about as bloated as a quinoa salad at a Silicon Valley board meeting.

Break it down:

• 71% goes to student aid—Pell Grants, federal loans, and keeping half the country in oversized collegiate hoodies and crippling debt.
• 25% supports K–12 programs—Title I, special education, and other pesky things like literacy and equal opportunity.
• 4% funds the department’s operations—think bureaucrats, building leases, performance reviews about performance reviews, and a Keurig machine with clearance-level access.

So, if you torch the department tomorrow, you’re not saving $268 billion.

You're saving about $10 to $12 billion.

Which, in executive compensation terms, is what we call:

“Q2.”

That 4%? It’s Real, and It’s Ridiculous.

Let’s be clear: the bureaucracy is not nothing. It’s real money supporting:

• Career lifers averaging $144,698 a year
• Office décor that screams “mid-century mediocrity”
• Oversight committees that meet to discuss other oversight committees
• And an army of well-meaning policy wonks so tangled in red tape they could double as airport luggage

It’s not corrupt. It’s not even villainous. It’s just... there.

Occupying space. Burning funds.

Making you wait 14 weeks for a grant response written in 12-point Times New Roman heartbreak.

But What If We Took the Scissors... and Handed Them to Teachers?

Now, here’s where it gets interesting.

Let’s say we leave the student aid and classroom programs untouched (no need to relive Lord of the Flies at the PTA level).

Instead, we take just 10% of the DOE budget—$26.8 billion—and give it directly to teachers.

There are 3.057 million public school teachers in America.

Their average salary? $69,597. Which, adjusted for inflation, is somewhere between "adjunct gig" and "full-time saint."

Redistributing $26.8 billion among them yields a raise of $8,770 per teacher.

That lifts the average salary to $78,367.

📈 That’s a 12.6% bump.

The kind of raise that doesn’t just cover groceries—it covers hope.

Maybe even a new car that doesn’t smell like dry-erase markers and shame.

Now Let’s Add a Veritas Twist: The Bonus Plan

At Veritas, we believe compensation should do more than reward tenure—it should reward results.

So, let’s do what we do for CEOs: layer in a performance-based bonus of 15%, tied to outcomes like student growth, graduation rates, innovation in pedagogy, or surviving a school board meeting without flipping a table.

💰 That’s another $11,755 per teacher, bringing total comp to $90,119.

Imagine that:

- Teaching becomes a profession again, not a sacrificial calling.

- Retention goes up.

- Results improve.

- The Uber driver with a master’s degree gets to retire... from Uber.

The Fine Print They Hope You Don’t Read

Now, let’s address the flaming piñata in the room.

When someone says, “We’ll save $268 billion by eliminating the Department of Education,” they’re selling you a fiscal hallucination.

Because:

• 96% of that budget goes directly to programs and students
• The remaining 4% is the actual federal overhead
• And yes, it’s bloated—but it’s not empire-level corruption. It's more Kafka with a copier.

But here’s the kicker: if we reimagine the federal education footprint—not eliminate it, just streamline it—we can finally solve one of the most politically radioactive, emotionally exhausting, and structurally ignored problems in America:

Teacher pay.

The Veritas of It All

Let’s recap with our favorite currency: logic.

✅ Trim the bureaucracy? Done.

✅ Protect essential education programs? Of course.

✅ Reward teachers for outcomes? Naturally.

✅ Pay teachers what they're worth? Finally.

✅ Restore dignity to the most overworked underpaid profession in America?

Say less.

Here’s the twist no one’s talking about:

We don’t need to burn it down. We just need to compensate it better.

With surgical intent. With accountability. With Veritas.

Closing Bell

In the boardroom, we don’t reward failure.

We restructure.

We realign.

We rethink incentives.

If America took that same approach to public education—cutting through the bureaucracy, investing in talent, and compensating based on value creation—we’d do more than balance a budget.

We’d rebuild the teaching profession from the ground up.

Not with platitudes.

Not with pizza parties.

But with paychecks that say: “We see you. We value you. You matter.”

And that, my friends, is how you turn a punchline into a plan.

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Frank Glassner is the CEO of Veritas Executive Compensation Consultants and a widely respected authority on executive pay and strategic compensation design. Known for his discerning judgment, consummate diplomacy, incisive insights, and unwavering discretion, he is a trusted advisor and confidant to boards, CEOs, and institutional investors worldwide.