The Obama administration has abandoned the old system for getting qualified air-traffic controller applicants because too many of them were white males, and replaced it with a new system that asks applicants how many different sports they played when they were in high school.

 

 

 

The Federal Aviation Administration has stopped giving preferential treatment to air-traffic controller applicants who had passed classes from the 36 FAA-approved college aviation programs across the U.S., because too many of the people who passed these classes were white males.

At the same time, the FAA also stopped giving preference to applicants who were military veterans with aviation experience.

Under the new system, applicants were asked how many different high school sports they had participated in.

The Wall St. Journal reports:

 

 

For years, aspiring air-traffic controllers in the U.S. have enrolled in schools selected by the Federal Aviation Administration to offer special courses that could smooth the way for a job at the agency.

 

But at the end of December, the FAA abruptly ended that special status for the 36 participating colleges and universities…

 

… some critics suspect it is intended partly to increase the share of minorities and women among controllers, who are now 83% male and white…

 

Some school officials say their controller enrollment already has fallen off because of the FAA change.

 

The FAA’s new stance “just doesn’t make sense,” said Douglas Williams, aviation-program director at the Community College of Baltimore County in Catonsville, Md… “They’re not getting the best-qualified applicants this way,” he said.

 

Students who have studied for the controller degrees fear they wasted time and money. Navy veteran Oscar Vega recently completed the two-year air-traffic program at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, Calif. He said he passed the FAA controller aptitude test last year, so he was shocked when, in February, he failed the biographical assessment.

 

“They say you can take it again,” said the 28-year-old. “But it’s not a test you can study for. And we don’t know why we failed because we don’t get any feedback.”

 

The schools estimate that more than 3,000 graduates have been removed from the FAA’s hiring pool because of the new policy.

 

The Chicago Tribune reports:

 

More than half of the latest batch of air-traffic controller job offers nationwide went to people with no aviation experience…

 

The hiring breakdown marks a major shift in FAA recruitment strategy, which is now geared toward… attracting more minorities and women to the nation’s largely white and male controller work force

 

For almost the last 25 years, until the off-the-street hiring process was implemented in February, the FAA recruited controllers heavily from among military veterans possessing aviation experience and from the 36 FAA-approved college aviation programs across the U.S.

 

A sample version of the new test includes the following question:

 

21. The number of different high school sports I participated in was:

 

A- 4 or more

 

B- 3

 

C- 2

 

D- 1

 

E- didn’t play sports

 

 

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