Finalist: The Des Moines Register, by Andie Dominick

Iowans need alternatives in higher education. But they don’t need more cosmetology schools. There are 27 in this state. Students — often young women from low-income families — spend months cutting hair, giving manicures, waxing eyebrows and providing other services. They may be pressured to sell shampoo and other products for the school. The school keeps all the money paid by customers. The students work for free as part of their training, and they pay tuition to obtain the 2,100 hours of training and education Iowa requires for a cosmetology license.

 

It was 1967 when Clyde Kenyon, then the director of the Iowa Department of Health’s Barbering Division, observed what has become an enduring truth: Barber and cosmetology schools are the only businesses where “people pay you to work for nothing.”

 

(Attributed to the Editorial Board.)

 

As a graduate of Des Moines University College of Podiatric Medicine and Surgery, Dr. John “Yoni” Libbie could live and work anywhere he desires. He has. Now, at the age of 59, he wants to pursue what he considers his life’s calling: Becoming a funeral home director in Iowa.

 

“From a spiritual perspective, you’re doing something for someone they can never repay you for,” he said.From a legal perspective, he needs a state license to do the job.

 

As The Des Moines Register’s editorial board has been reporting, Iowa’s occupational licensing laws can create burdens that impede business growth and limit competition in the 21st century. To say training requirements for jobs are in the interest of public health and safety is sometimes a stretch. Yoni Libbie is learning that firsthand.

 

After practicing medicine in Texas for a decade, he moved back to Iowa. At the suggestion of his rabbi, he began helping prepare bodies of the deceased in accordance with Jewish tradition. He went on to obtain a degree in mortuary science from Des Moines Area Community College. Then he embarked on the state-mandated, year-long internship to secure his funeral director license.

 

The problem: Iowa law requires interns to “embalm not fewer than 25 human remains.”

 

Embalming, which consists of injecting or applying chemical substances, fluids or gases to preserve or disinfect a body, violates Libbie’s religious convictions. Traditional Judaism considers it disrespectful to the body, he said. But his objection isn’t only religious.

 

Embalming introduces toxic substances into the environment. Families who are encouraged to choose it for loved ones “are more likely to spend more for caskets, vaults, funeral merchandise, funeral home use for visitations, subsequent viewing and services,” Libbie said. Also, bodies often don’t require embalming if they are going to be cremated, and the number of families choosing cremation has grown significantly in recent years.

 

Libbie says embalming isn’t necessary to protect public health.

 

“The dead are no more pathogenic than they were ante-mortem,” he said. “Prior to death, they were not placed in leak-proof containers, injected with formaldehyde, or wrapped in impervious plastic. While decomposing bodies are aesthetically unpleasant, modern medicine rejects assertions that they are a risk to the public health.”

 

Kevin Patterson, chairman of DMACC’s mortuary science program, says that while this is generally true, death also does not eliminate the possibility of contracting contagious diseases that posed a threat prior to death. “If we wish to simply maintain the same level of public health once deceased, we could without embalming,” he said, but preserving a body for viewing is an important part of the grieving process for some families.

 

Libbie doesn’t plan to embalm bodies. He wants to open a funeral home that is exclusively sensitive to the traditions of Jews, Muslims, environmentalists and others who reject routine embalming of the dead.

 

So he pursued an exemption to the embalming requirement from the Iowa Board of Mortuary Science, one of 19 licensing boards housed in the Iowa Department of Public Health. Libbie was troubled when the staff asked him to submit numerous documents and make a personal appearance to explain his reluctance to embalm bodies. The board was “sure going to have some questions,” he was told.

 

He ultimately withdrew his waiver request on principle. “Citizens should not have to petition for an exemption to a bad rule. The bad rule must go,” he said.

 

One solution the state should consider: Rather than issuing a single license for funeral home directors that includes an embalming internship requirement, offer a license for funeral home directors and a separate one or a license endorsement for embalming. Iowa used to do this. Other states still do.

 

That would allow Libbie and others to pursue work in this field without violating religious, moral or environmental objections. Let the market decide if such a business flourishes or falters. But a government requirement that has little to do with public health should not stand in the way.

Iowa is the place to be if you own a cosmetology school.

 

The state requires 2,100 hours of education and training to obtain a license to work as a cosmetologist. That’s more than twice what some other states require. That requirement guarantees schools have student laborers for months to provide haircuts and facials to customers. Money flows in from multiple directions: students, the U.S. Department of Education and customers. But government provides little oversight of schools.

 

Iowa is not the place to be if you’re a cosmetology student.

 

They spend months in school cutting and coloring hair, giving manicures and waxing eyebrows for no pay. They frequently graduate with thousands of dollars in student loan debt and work in an industry where the median wage is less than $11 per hour. (Cosmetology school owners take issue with this federal wage calculation because it doesn’t account for many cosmetologists whose annual wage is reduced because they work parttime.) Though Iowa licensed about 1,000 new cosmetologists last year, there were only a few hundred new jobs, federal statistics show.

 

As The Des Moines Register’s editorial board has previously written, parents and school counselors should steer young people toward other options in higher education, including nonprofit community colleges. State lawmakers should reduce the number of hours required for a cosmetology license and end the taxpayer-funded grants students can receive to attend these schools.

 

And Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller should open an investigation into La’James International College, an Iowa-based cosmetology school with seven campuses, including five in this state. (The school is not affiliated with the Original La James College in Mason City.)

 

Since first publishing an editorial on cosmetology licensure in March, the Register’s editorial board has received several complaints about the school from current and former students. Though Iowa has 27 cosmetology schools, La’James was the only one that was the subject of readers’ complaints. Over the past few years, complaints have been filed with the attorney general, Iowa College Student Aid Commission and the Better Business Bureau. Some allege serious offenses, including the school not abiding by laws pertaining to refunding money to students who drop out.

 

No state entity can provide current, comprehensive information about the school’s practices. The Iowa Board of Cosmetology Arts and Sciences, which licenses the school, is prohibited by Iowa law from providing any public information about complaints. The Virginia-based organization that accredits the school would not answer specific questions about La’James.

 

The quality and cost of higher education affects Iowa families, students and the taxpayers who frequently help pay for that education. President Barack Obama, Sen. Tom Harkin, numerous state attorneys general and others have raised concerns about for-profit colleges. Most of their focus has been on four-year institutions.

 

More attention must be paid to the practices at for-profit schools offering shorter, specialized education programs.

 

This includes cosmetology school programs that can cost students as much as $30,000. The schools tend to attract young women from low-income families eligible for taxpayer-financed education grants.

 

Someone must look out for these Iowans who are simply trying to attain an education and state license to work.

 

Among the concerns expressed by Iowans about La’James:

 

• Leigh Ann Jordan was enrolled at the Fort Dodge campus before transferring to another school. She told the attorney general the school is “declaring the entire two-year program as one class” and didn’t refund the money she was entitled to. She also had to pay a $1,300 “cancellation fee” when she withdrew.

 

• Dawn Pendry started classes at La’James in 2010. She complained about not having an instructor, not being able to get answers about student aid and said students near graduation are “afraid to do a man’s haircut because they have not received the training.”

 

• Tanya Youda enrolled in La’James, left and then returned. Though she had already paid $1,500 for a “kit,” containing curling irons, shears and other essentials, the school told her she needed to pay $500 for a new one.

 

• Bev Letze said her daughter Jennifer enrolled in La’James in 2010. The girl died in a car accident the month before classes began. Letze asked the school to refund the enrollment fee, but it didn’t do so.

 

• Danielle Lanus got serious about quitting a few months into her classes when she was told she needed to buy new and different textbooks than the ones she had already purchased. Her complaint to the attorney general includes supporting documents, copies of correspondence with the school and a photocopy of an Iowa Code section, which she said the school is violating. A school representative told her because she had completed “just over 60 percent of the program,” she was liable for the entire cost. She then received a letter from La’James telling her she owed more than $6,300.

 

• Corby Oliver was already licensed as a massage therapist when she returned to La’James in 2011 for her cosmetology degree. She says the school told her she would receive 350 hours of credit toward the 2,100 hours required for cosmetology. “At first they gave me 150 hours, then took them away. I kept pressuring them to look at the hours. When they finally did several months later, they said I should have said something earlier,” said Oliver.

 

She says she never got credit for any of the hours. Now that Oliver has graduated and owes $20,000 in student loans, she remains confounded by practices at the school.

 

“I’ve gotten my tax statement from La’James and there are transactions showing the school gave me money, but I never received it.”

 

Angelica Bleecher, who graduated last year, said everything started out fine when she was first enrolled, but “by the time it went to hell it was too late to drop or transfer.” She is working at Great Clips in Des Moines and says she owes more than $40,000 in student and parent education loans.

 

A handful of current students also contacted the Register’s editorial board to express frustration and confusion about the school, but they did not want their names used because they feared retaliation, including being relegated to the receptionist desk for hours.

 

Iowa’s government forces people who want to be cosmetologists to spend thousands of dollars and months attending a beauty school to secure a state license to work. That government provides essentially no oversight of the schools and little help when students are wronged.

 

It’s the perfect arrangement if you are a for-profit beauty school but not so much if you are a student. It is time for government to look out for students.

Yolanda Dings was enrolled at La’James International College in Johnston for 10 months before she withdrew a few weeks ago. The 36-year-old mother is one of several former students who have contacted The Des Moines Register with concerns about the for-profit cosmetology school that has its headquarters in Fort Dodge.

 

“They should have given me a janitorial degree,” Dings said. She explained that students spend as much time sweeping floors and folding towels as they do working on customers. She shared many of the same complaints that we have heard from other former students who were trying to complete the program at La’James and secure a state cosmetology license.

 

Attorney General Tom Miller’s office is now investigating complaints that have been made by past and present La’James students.

 

But Dings’ story also underscores an issue that doesn’t get much attention in a state where only 7 percent of the 3 million residents are minorities: She only wants to braid hair. She doesn’t want to wax eyebrows or color hair or cut and style customers’ hair.

 

So why does she have to spend 2,100 hours obtaining the full cosmetology training to meet the state’s requirement for a cosmetology license if all she wants to do is braid hair?

 

If she lived in another state, she wouldn’t.

 

Iowa is one of only seven states with laws that specifically require people to obtain a cosmetology or similar license to work as a hair braider, according to a report from the Institute for Justice, a civil liberties interest group in Washington, D.C. It’s another example of how Iowa’s licensing requirements for some jobs sometimes prevent people from opening businesses and finding work. It’s also an example of how some requirements especially hurt minorities and low-income people.

 

Iowa lawmakers should do what some states have done and exempt hair braiders from the cosmetology licensing requirement. Or Dings should contact the Institute for Justice and talk with them about filing a lawsuit against the state of Iowa.

 

Last year, the organization represented a Utah woman with a similar complaint. A federal judge ruled in her favor, calling Utah’s requirement to obtain a cosmetology license to braid hair a “scheme” that is “wholly irrational and a violation of her constitutionally protected rights.”

 

Paul Avelar, a lawyer for the Institute for Justice and the lead attorney in the Utah lawsuit, said, “Hair braiding using no heat or chemicals poses absolutely no threat to public health or safety.”

 

But Dings lives in Iowa. That means she and others who want to braid hair to supplement their incomes must spend tens of thousands of dollars and about 14 months at a for-profit school learning cosmetology skills they will never use.

 

That’s not all: Iowa’s law is particularly ridiculous because while it requires someone to be a cosmetologist if they want to braid hair, the law does not require cosmetology schools to teach even one class in hair-braiding.

 

“Iowa is not only killing a fly with a sledge hammer by requiring 2,100 hours, but the weird part is you’re not even swinging at a fly,” Avelar said. “It would be like requiring attorneys to go to cosmetology school.”

Iowa lawmakers often assure their constituents that creating jobs is a top priority. They praise small businesses, offer tax incentives to large ones and denounce “burdensome” government regulations. Yet, the actions of the Iowa Legislature and some of Iowa’s job-licensing boards prevent Iowans from opening businesses and finding work.

 

It is time for elected officials to take a comprehensive look at the 34 licensing boards that regulate everyone from barbers and pharmacists to optometrists, hair braiders and nail technicians. Why does someone need government permission to be an interior designer or sign language interpreter? Is it really necessary for cosmetologists to have 2,100 hours of training before they can get a license? That is twice what some states require. Emergency medical technicians are required to have about one-tenth as many hours of training.

 

Some licensing boards are obviously important to protect public safety by ensuring workers have certain minimum education and training. Yet the licensing boards, often composed largely of industry insiders, may limit competition and protect the economic interests of the workers they are supposed to regulate.

 

Worse, lawmakers have helped these boards do exactly that. Among the most egregious examples of this: In 2009, the Legislature approved an amendment to Iowa law that ensured only dentists can provide teeth-whitening services.

 

That’s right. You can whiten your own teeth with a mouth tray and gel purchased at a drugstore. You can go online and buy exactly the same products dentists use in their offices. And if you lived in most other states, you could set up a business offering this cosmetic procedure to the public — and many people have.

 

But not in Iowa.

 

Iowa is one of only five states where there are laws that prohibit non-dentists from providing teeth-whitening services, according to a report by the Institute for Justice, a civil liberties interest group in Washington, D.C. Only a licensed dentist can whiten anyone’s teeth “at any geographic location,” according to Iowa law. Melanie Johnson, executive director of the Iowa Dental Board, said a dental assistant can do the whitening under the supervision of a dentist. Of course, that guarantees the dentist is paid for the service and a dental hygienist can’t open his or her own business, even though this worker was trained in whitening if she attended Des Moines Area Community College.

 

The Iowa Dental Board, a majority of whose members are dentists, regulates dental professionals and pushed for this change in law. Even before the change, the board had been interpreting an old law to justify investigating teeth-whitening businesses. The board sent those businesses letters notifying them that they were “not licensed in the State of Iowa to practice dentistry” and that they should “cease and desist from this illegal activity.”

 

The board has sent more than 20 such letters to new and expanding businesses in Iowa — essentially scaring them into closing.

 

One man who had rented space in a Cedar Rapids mall told investigators he had consulted an attorney, purchased a franchise and was just getting started in his new endeavor. A business owner in Ankeny thought she was abiding by law and asked investigators what she was supposed to do about the remaining clients she had scheduled that day. Another was apparently so rattled by the investigators he said he was closing immediately, reports from the investigators said.

 

Teeth-whitening is hardly dangerous. It poses about as much risk as many other cosmetic services consumers perform on themselves — from bleaching their upper lips to chemically removing leg hair. The most common side effects are irritated gums and increased tooth sensitivity. But federal agencies don’t even caution consumers about that.

 

The Iowa Dental Board investigations into teeth-whitening businesses were not prompted by consumers who had been injured. Almost all resulted from dentists tattling on their competitors.

 

Limiting who can whiten teeth isn’t about protecting public health. It’s about ensuring only dentists capture revenue from the lucrative service. (Members of the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry collect an average of $25,000 annually for whitening teeth, according to the Institute for Justice.)

 

So in 2008, the Iowa Dental Board adopted a position statement advocating that only dentists should be able to whiten teeth. The board voted to pursue a change in Iowa law to cement that in place. Iowa law had previously defined the practice of dentistry in the same way most Iowans would define it: Skilled and educated people whose work included examining, diagnosing, treating and correcting problems with teeth, gums and the jaw. Now, the practice of dentistry also includes whitening teeth.

 

Dentists should be embarrassed. These people spent years in school studying everything from oral cancer to anesthesia to pharmacology. They are doctors. Redefining dentistry in Iowa so no one else can bleach teeth for cosmetic purposes diminishes the seriousness of the dental profession.

 

In recent years, the American Dental Association pushed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate tooth-whitening products, a move that would probably limit public access to them. But the FDA didn’t bite.

 

Of course, that is to be expected from organizations protecting the interests of dentists. But one doesn’t expect it from an Iowa licensing board that is supposed to exist to look out for consumers. But apparently this is how things work in Iowa.

 

 

 

A few former La’James students have told The Des Moines Register they owed more money in federal student loans than they thought they were borrowing. 

They did not realize how much until after they left school and the U.S. Department of Education contacted them to set up a repayment plan. 

 

In a complaint to the Iowa attorney general, Philip East claimed the school submitted an application for federal student aid in his daughter’s name to collect money the family didn’t know was owed. 

 

Earlier this year, a lawsuit was filed against La’James in Webster County, alleging school employees told a student her education could be paid for with grants. It wasn’t until after she completed a 750-hour esthetics program that she found out she owed $15,000 in federal student loans. 

 

The lawsuit alleges the school forged student loan documents. The court records include an opinion of a fraud examiner in Illinois who analyzed the defendant’s handwriting on the loan documents. 

 

The consumer protection division of the Iowa attorney general’s office is investigating La’James. To file a complaint with Attorney General Tom Miller’s office or get more information, call 515-281-5926 or visit www.IowaAttorneyGeneral.gov.

The Iowa Board of Cosmetology Arts and Sciences has released a list of administrative charges against La’James International College in Iowa City. The board alleges the for-profit cosmetology school failed to keep equipment clean, lacked enough instructors and failed to adequately supervise students. These students are trying to obtain the 2,100 hours of training and education the state requires for a license to work in a beauty salon.

 

The board’s action was made public two months after The Des Moines Register editorial board began raising concerns about La’James, which has five locations in Iowa. We have reported on complaints from numerous current and former students. The Iowa attorney general’s office is now investigating the school’s practices, and a lawsuit has been filed in Webster County by a former student alleging that La’James forged student loan documents.

 

But Iowans shouldn’t only be asking questions about La’James. They should also be asking questions about the state cosmetology board, which is responsible for overseeing thousands of workers and salons, plus the 27 cosmetology schools in Iowa.

 

In the past 13 years, the board has received 57 complaints about the schools. The recent charges against La’James marked the first time it has taken public action against a school in 20 years.

 

The charges are based on an investigation and inspection conducted in June 2012. A hearing on the charges is not scheduled until January 2014. That means the school will continue to recruit and enroll new students for a year and a half after the state licensing board found problems at La’James.

 

That delay is troubling, but there are other concerns state leaders should address about this board’s resources, operations and responsibilities.

 

Licensing boards in Iowa are generally composed of seven people appointed by the governor. Most members work in the industry being regulated. The names of the cosmetology board members are listed on the Iowa Department of Public Health’s Web site, but no contact information is included and the agency refused to provide it.

 

Employees said the agency wanted to coordinate responses through the cosmetology board office to ensure accuracy and consistency. Newly appointed board members may not be aware of previous responses on a matter, the staff said. In the end, the agency provided the information to us.

 

That information should be readily available on the board’s Web site. Iowans should be able to easily contact members of any board that licenses, oversees and has the power to sanction nearly 23,000 Iowa workers and businesses.

 

Though hair salons are not subject to regular inspections, Iowa lawmakers decided it was important for the state to regularly check on cosmetology schools. The law requires these institutions to be inspected annually. Like inspections of entities from restaurants to nursing homes, it’s reasonable to expect these evaluations are conducted by trained people.

 

Well, that isn’t the case.

 

Cosmetology board members conduct inspections of schools. That’s right. Volunteer board members trained by other volunteer board members visit schools and fill out five-page inspection reports that require checks on everything from sanitizing equipment to disposing of used need­les to procedures for spilled blood — areas that are technical and complex.

 

In the 118 pages of inspection reports for 2011, not a single school was out of compliance in any of the 60 areas being inspected.

 

Participating board members are licensed cosmetologists, but that doesn’t mean they are qualified to conduct inspections for the state. And these same individuals may vote on sanctioning a school.

 

The cosmetology board is a group of industry insiders given authority by the state to regulate more than 20,000 individuals and businesses. Iowa law and administrative rules include many provisions that raise questions about whether the board has been focused on protecting public health or protecting the cosmetology workers and businesses.

 

For example, an Iowa cosmetologist licensed before July 2005 can perform a chemical peel on someone’s face if she obtains additional training, but a cosmetologist licensed after that date must go back to school to obtain an entirely new license in esthetics. At La’James, that’s a 750-hour program.

 

You have to be a licensed cosmetologist to braid, curl or shampoo a wig or hairpiece “when done in conjunction with haircutting or hairstyling by any means,” state law says. Why is a cosmetology license required to style a wig?

 

The Legislature and Gov. Terry Branstad should review the entire law related to the cosmetology profession. Lawmakers should significantly reduce the training hours required to be a cosmetologist, nail technician and esthetician.

 

Elected officials also need to examine whether a board of industry insiders should have so much responsibility and power over workers — or whether such a board should represent Iowans in general rather than insiders.

Electrologists working in Iowa must complete 425 hours of training, obtain a state license and then are only allowed to use lasers to remove hair.

 

On Monday, a committee of the Iowa Board of Cosmetology Arts and Sciences contemplated also allowing electrologists to treat toenail fungus. After criticism from medical professionals, it appears that won’t be happening soon, however, and electrologists now providing such treatments in the state are probably violating Iowa law.

 

Monday’s meeting was rather surreal. The cosmetology board is under the Iowa Department of Public Health, but no one from the department offered any evidence that the scope of practice for electrologists ought to be expanded. One of the cosmetology board members is an electrologist, and she talked about an electrologist who is now using a laser to treat toenail fungus with a supposed success rate of 98 percent. “Does it work? Yes it does,” she said. The person is also a “laserologist,” she stressed.

 

“What is a laserologist?” asked Kevin Kruse, executive director of the Iowa Podiatric Medical Society. He was among the few spectators representing the medical profession at the meeting.

 

Dr. Vince Mandracchia, chief medical officer for Broad­lawns Medical Center, said onychomycosis (toenail fungus) is a medical condition to be dealt with by medical professionals. There is no evidence it can be successfully treated with lasers, he said, and doing so could penetrate the underlying skin and even the bone. A subsequent infection wouldn’t be recognized and couldn’t be treated by an electrologist.

 

Ultimately the board abandoned the proposed change — as well as other proposed changes on the agenda.

 

But would that have happened if the board hadn’t had an audience on Monday? Expanding the scope of practice for electrologists wasn’t on the medical profession’s radar until The Des Moines Register editorial board wrote about the meeting. And the editorial board wouldn’t have known if someone hadn’t anonymously mailed us the meeting agenda with comments scribbled on it.

 

The meeting offered a glimpse into the operations of one of Iowa’s 34 state-run job licensing boards that oversee more than 100,000 people in dozens of occupations. The board members appointed by the governor have incredible power. They can set in motion changes in state regulations on such things as increasing the required hours to become a licensed worker to the continuing education requirements. Considering that most board members are industry insiders, there is great potential for conflicts of interests.

 

For example, one cosmetology board member who discussed continuing education offers that training herself.

 

The board considered pushing for a change in law to eliminate a requirement to inspect salons, but some board members own salons themselves. Representatives of for-profit beauty schools sat at the table with the board members and seemed to carry as much weight as board members and state employees in conversations about online education and salon sanitation practices.

 

Opponents of licensing boards say they are government run amok. That isn’t quite accurate. The boards are actually a state-sanctioned vehicle for industry insiders to push whatever agenda each member may have.

 

This is a situation created by Iowa lawmakers — and one lawmakers should address.