Boyce – compensation

The advice that I would love to give to policy makers is that we as a society should be honouring and reimbursing at a whole different level, at a quantum level of difference those people who come in contact with and affect the lives of young children as they begin school. So for example there is a Harvard economist who has calculated that the financial advantage of a society of a group of 20 children having a really great kindergarten teacher versus a not so hot one is about $320 thousand a year. Now we don’t pay kindergarten teachers anywhere near that. They’re usually paid $30 thousand, $40 thousand a year, but the benefit, the financial and socio-emotional benefit to society is huge, and we need to, as a society, honour that more substantially.