Thank you!

When I was a captain on the 1900 out in Denver in the late 1990s, I remember flying with a few female FO's who would have never made it to captain. Not because they were female, just because they weren't very good. Well, it didn't matter because they all got snatched up by United and US Airways without upgrading. I never got a call.

I also remember sending a letter to Dateline NBC and 60 Minutes letting them know about this practice. That's before I realize how liberal the media is, so obviously I never heard anything.

Soon after, I vowed to never vote for a democrat again.

RK

As to the title of this thread, the sad part is, the FAA is definitely NOT in hot water...this is now normal, and expected. These things go in cycles, I expect a backlash sometime in the future over these practices, but not yet. Too many powerful people in favor. Sam

I don't know why everyone is beating up on the FAA. This crap has been going on in this country since the 70's. Colleges have been doing it for years. Though we wouldn't be moaning about this now if there had been fair hiring practices in the 50's and 60's. Of course things are way out of wack now with the way liberals try to ferret out every company with " numerical proof" of discrimination, not actual proof just numerical proof. Statistical inference not facts but hey, that's the way it's done now and the courts used to support this faulty line of reasoning

Wow, you're really angry about this.

Okay, "off the street" (OTS) is FAA-speak for someone with no previous air traffic control experience. It doesn't literally mean a bum picked up from the street. Many or most OTS hires including myself have college degrees. So no, in my 20 years of training both OTS hires and CTI hires, I haven't seen much difference in outcome between someone who took a couple ATC classes at a CTI community college, or OTS hires with masters' degrees in mathematics, or OTS hires with just a GED. Many make it, some don't. In my experience (and the FAA's, since they still don't require a college degree after 70+ years experience in hiring and training) it comes mostly down to personality and aptitude, not book knowledge of aviation, history or chemistry you might have had before you were hired.

All that other stuff you quoted is the hyperbole you should expect from a TV news article: That guy giving out answers is a rogue employee who I'm sure will be disciplined. Obviously that's not FAA policy; The AT-SAT scores weren't "thrown out," they just stopped using that test and switched to a different one; CTI automatically qualifying you for the academy I suppose was "thrown out" but that was a 10 year old policy they decided to change. It's the government -- policies change usually more often than that even. CTI students were always told taking those classes is no guarantee of employment.

What that girl's lawyer was talking about -- different agencies doing the hiring -- yea, well, that's how the U.S. government is set up. OPM does hiring for all civilian agencies, then within each agency you still have different leadership and mandates -- the different ATO's and different regions have different wants and needs, sometimes conflict, and not everyone communicates together very well. It's the federal government. Whether or not his client was discriminated against by someone in the agency, I certainly don't know. I do know there is a pervasive paranoia within the FAA regarding discrimination of any kind, and elaborate checks and balances against personal biases affecting others' careers. That's why they use standardized tests instead of interviews, for example, for hiring and promotions. So I'd highly doubt any discrimination in her case, but let the court decide.

If your anger and bitterness about this is because you spent a lot of time and money for an "ATC" degree and weren't hired, well, all I can say is keep trying. You can reapply, can't you? Policies also change, especially when presidents do. Plus this new screening test is a bit of an experiment, and I'm sure will change again within a few years as the training outcome of the new hires are tracked.

That's the max age, we're eligible after 25 years at any age, or after 20 years and age 50 or above. I'll be eligible at 47.

I'd dearly, DEARLY love to respond more fully to that reponse, Bob, but both decorum and more importantly forum policy prevent it. I'll only say you are wrong about my being angry or bitter. The correct term is "disgusted", as when one sees a pile of dog vomit. I'll save getting angry over it when/if it can ever be shown to have negatively impacted safety and/or gotten people killed.

Wow, this thread is misleading. Is NBCFAE an FAA funded organization....tax dollars dictate it's budget??
The FAA didn't supply a "screen shot" to Miss Reilly. Her fraternity did. She didn't get upset about "cheating" until it didn't work. That's disgusting.

" Remember the left's battle cry: "The nature of the evidence is irrelevant; it's the seriousness of the charge that matters." (used by the left during the attempted "BORKING" of Supreme Court Nominee - Clarence Thomas.
I think the charges are VERY serious and require at least a congressional investigation. If nothing more, it needs to figure out who decided it would be a good idea to do this to enhance diversity

...one, scored 4 touchdowns in one game!!!

Here is an opinion from a recently retired controller (from another forum):

Does anyone else find it strangely odd that some people can so casually opine that a $30-40,000 college degree....and the 4 year investment of classroom education that went with it..."means exactly nothing"?

Apparently, the FAA didn't think so.

Obviously, the FAA recognized the need (and, one presumes, the characteristics & aptitudes) for future controllers. Seems to me some FAA controllers are saying the FAA didn't know what it needed.

But how accurate is that? What kind of candidate were they pulling in?

So, a former Google employee (whose pre-employment vetting is legendary, btw) earns a perfect score in the FAA accredited college degree after 4 years of dedicated effort. That doesn't seem like "means absolutely nothing" re: preparing oneself to be an excellent ATC candidate.

But that's not what 2 random controllers are saying.

Hmmm. This controller is not only saying a college degree amounts to nothing, but that the pre-selection process was flawed. He says they were getting poor candidates. That's obviously not true.

But wait, there's more...

Simulators, huh? That sounds just like the most common tools for this industry's training. What else?

What about pre-employment screening?

So the FAA, that created and controlled this whole program, followed up the degree with a 8 hour computer-based test.

OK. But what about that test?

Sounds pretty challenging and right in-line with industry standards. But wait...why would an FAA source wish to remain anonymous about information like that?

Something must be causing that source to be concerned for him/herself in speaking out.

Why? What was wrong with the FAA's CTI program?

Why not? What was wrong with the program?

It turns out, nothing was wrong. It's was completely unrelated to the QUALITY of the candidates. :eek:

So this ISN'T about the quality of candidates or their aptitudes, as some are trying to claim. Not according to the FAA itself.

It's all about "job diversity"...and specifically...

Sounds to me like some people...like ATCBob and this other poster....are creating unsupported "quality of candidate" straw-men to knock over and justify a racially-engineered change in FAA hiring practices they just might be very pre-disposed towards.

Really? Then why this...

Recorded telephone messages are pretty conclusive evidence. And the FAA is denying it. Yet another straw-man destroyed.


Only if the person so-charged is a Republican. See: Hillary 2016
.