[MMM]

The numbers for JET are declining. I don't know if JET is trying to put people in elementary schools, but I have friends who were ALTs at two schools that no longer exist. The number of students is declining rapidly. Though, you are right, elementary schools should want ALTs.

Keep in mind that schools don't hire JET participants, the Japanese government does. My employer was not my school, but the board of education in the prefecture I worked in. Schools do not choose their teachers, the prefectural board of education does. So if private eikaiwa teachers are replacing JET ALTs, that is a prefectural government decision, not a school one.