Dear Colleagues

What the ASA was telling practitioners while the schools were writing to DeVos

In May 2017, while the Council of Colleges was writing to Betsy DeVos asking her to weaken student borrower protections, the American Society of Acupuncturists sent a different kind of letter. Not to a government official. To us.

It opens: “Dear Colleagues.”

It’s warmer than the institutional letters. And in some ways, because of that, more revealing.

The second paragraph of the ASA letter states plainly that everyone in the profession supports “the broad concept that educational programs should impart vocational skills that lead to career earnings making the investment of time and cost worthwhile. Everyone wants an education that leads to a meaningful and sustainable career.”

They knew the principle was sound. They spent the rest of the letter explaining why it shouldn’t apply to us.

The part-time-by-choice argument

The letter cites the 2013 NCCAOM Job Analysis showing 69% of respondents working fewer than 40 hours per week, and uses this to argue that the earnings data is skewed, that the federal government was counting part-time workers by choice and thereby undercounting acupuncturist income potential.

Look at the reasons respondents gave for working part-time: personal choice, caring for family members, another job in the AOM field, another job outside the AOM field.

The last three are not personal choices and definitely not the last one. A graduate working a second job outside acupuncture is not choosing a flexible lifestyle. That is a graduate who could not sustain a practice and needed other income. The ASA letter counts workforce failure as lifestyle preference and uses it to argue the data is misleading.

The letter then cites median gross income of $52,000 at a mean of eleven years in practice as evidence that federal earnings data undercounts acupuncturist income. But $52,000 gross, before taxes, at eleven years in, is not a rebuttal to the debt problem! It’s the same confession the CCAOM letter made the same year.

The lawsuit

The letter informs practitioners that in 2017 twelve acupuncture schools had jointly filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education over the Gainful Employment metrics. The ASA boardpresents this approvingly, as coordinated action on behalf of the profession.

The schools were suing the federal government to avoid earnings accountability. The practitioner association, who is supposed to be advocating for and protecting practitioners, told its members this was good news.

The closing

The letter ends: “These growing pains for our sector will, in the long run, make us stronger.”

That was 2017. Since then the workforce has declined every year. Schools have closed. Graduates are carrying debt they cannot repay.

This is not growing pains, it is a pattern. It’s documented, predictable, and still being defended with the same arguments at last Wednesday’s town hall.

From https://www.theheagroup.com/blog/op-ed-credibility-crisis-p6nj8

Who is the ASA for?

I want to be careful here because I know that many ASA volunteers are practitioners who are themselves harmed by this system, showing up in good faith to advocate for a profession they love. I have genuine compassion for that. I was a member of the ASA’s Student Committee (and still am if they haven’t kicked me off from all of my writing yet) and know that there is a lot of care there. The ASA letter was not written by villains and I’m not trying to imply that it was.

But the 2017 letter was written to recruit practitioners into defending the institutions that harmed them. It framed federal earnings accountability, the mechanism most likely to force reform, as a threat to the profession rather than a protection for its students. It counted their struggles as personal choices. It cheered a lawsuit filed by schools against student protections. And it promised that enduring the harm would make everyone stronger.

Eight years later the slide deck says: Coordination is Key. Messaging is Critical. Act as recommended by AHM Coalition.

So I’m asking today because I know the ASA cares about practitioners. As the ASA is currently structured and funded, is it capable of acting in practitioners’ interests when doing so would require confronting the institutions they have now entered into a coalition with? I’m asking the folks at the ASA, whether or not you are a member struggling with debt or just seeing it happening around you, to stand up for what is right for our students and colleagues.