BusinessReport.com

This year, Business Report continues its 10-year tradition of honoring a group of women who bring smarts, ingenuity, creativity and resourcefulness to their professions.

Like women often do, the group will likely privately thank those that helped them along the way, a list that might include encouraging parents, inspiring teachers, straight-shooting mentors, cooperative children and supportive spouses. I’m also betting that those with children would throw in good day care staff, since a working mother’s productivity is often commensurate with her peace of mind about the person keeping her child.

The relationship that develops between professionals and their young children’s caregivers is a fascinating slice of American society. Day care facilities give families the large blocks of time required to fulfill personal goals and build financial stability.

Without them, women like Dr. Mary Raven, 29, would have struggled to meet the grueling requirements of her residency program, during which her two children were born back-to-back. Nor would she have been able to accept a job as a primary care hospitalist at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, a high-demand position our community needs.

“My schedule has been crazy at times,” Raven says. “I couldn’t have done it without a great childcare.”

Raven uses Woman’s Hospital Child Development Center, a Class A day care facility with operating hours spanning 5:45 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Time isn’t the only service day care centers provide. Over the last decade, much-publicized studies demonstrating the malleability of children’s brains until age 3 have stepped up the role day care plays in early literacy. More than ever, facilities are under scrutiny for helping children not only learn to share, but become ready for “real” school.

“Everything we do is now research-based,” says Debbie Dean, director of the Early Learning Center at First United Methodist Church in Baton Rouge. “We know how to instruct when they’re infants, and how that changes as they grow.”

A substantial number of children are exposed to day care in Louisiana. According to the 2006 Agenda for Children Kids Count Special Report on Child Care, 65 percent of children under six in Louisiana live in households without a stay-at-home parent.

That puts day care workers in high demand. By 2014, the state’s force of more than 15,300 will grow by 1.5 percent⎯a rate faster than the average job growth rate, according to the Department of Labor. To help meet demand, many of Louisiana’s community and technical colleges have expanded their certification and degree programs in early childhood development.

Yet despite their important spot in the economic engine, day care workers are among society’s lowest paid, often fetching starting salaries just north of minimum wage.

Entry level pay for hourly day care workers in the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Statistical Area is $6.62, topping off at $11.10 per hour for the most experienced teachers. Salaried employees start at $13,760 and increase to $23,098 with experience, according to the Department of Labor.

Unlike elementary school teachers, whose average pay in the state is now $39,200, most of Louisiana’s child care workers work year-round. The argument for the pay disparity is often that day care staff aren’t required to have four-year degrees. That argument loses its teeth when you consider the trend toward well-paying jobs, like nursing and process technology, require only associate degrees.

Changes are afoot to both increase education and bring economic relief to day care workers, but they’re slow. Last year, the Louisiana Legislature passed the School Readiness Tax Credit, which took effect in January. Among the tax breaks offered in the four-part program is one that benefits teachers. But to get it, they must be employed by facilities that pass the new rating system, thus encouraging a system-wide elevation of standards. Additional tax breaks are available for teachers who obtain additional education.

Economic disparity is part of capitalism. But looking at each of the elements that make a professional family’s day work will make us all better.