4 ms·

ATC (as well as most government jobs) are a real case of "you get what you pay for". When you bring wages down so low that educated engineers don't want to work

ATC (as well as most government jobs) are a real case of "you get what you pay for". When you bring wages down so low that educated engineers don't want to work your job, your options are to lower the qualifications or leave empty seats. DEI might have contributed to this, but we wouldn't be hiring unqualified people in the first place if America could naturally compete for talent. The lesson learned seems to be less about the dangers of diversity and more about how the feds aren't paying the industry rate for professionals.

tristor 2y ago
Did you read the link that I replied to? Because in that link, what I am responding to, it EXPLICITLY says that the FAA changed the ATC selection process to exclude candidates based on demographics (being not diverse) regardless of their aptitude as tested using a standardized and validated cognitive assessment. These were candidates who had already completed multiple years of schooling and explicitly wanted to be ATCs, so you are talking about a pipeline problem which may or may not exist but is irrelevant to the article I am responding to in the link above my comment. Per that article, candidates who accepted the pay terms and wanted to become ATCs were /rejected/ explicitly because they were not minorities or otherwise able to produce a biographical or demographic reason for acceptance, even when they scored a perfect score on the standardized aptitude assessment. If you have something to refute the article the person above me linked, I'd love to see it because I'm incredibly disappointed in what I read about in that article.
- gamblor956 2y ago
  No, you read a link that says people suing the FAA claim the FAA didn't hire qualified candidates on diversity. Except that none of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit actually bothered to apply for jobs with the FAA (see this blog post from their own legal team crowing about winning a procedural matter over whether they had standing to sue given that they never applied for a job and thus were never actually rejected by the FAA https://mslegal.org/press-releases/mslf-prevails-over-faas-attempt-to-dismiss-brigida-hiring-preference-claim/ https://mslegal.org/press-releases/mslf-prevails-over-faas-a... )... What actually happened was that the FAA invalidated a bunch of AT-SAT[1] scores to align with its new diversity policy, and a bunch of people who barely passed the first time didn't want to re-take the test again and risk failing. So they did the American thing and sued instead. The FAA has not rejected qualified candidates on the grounds of "diversity." And at any rate, the controller in the DC tower last night was hired during the Trump administration and the Blackhawk pilot that caused the crash wasn't the kind of candidate who would have been selected on DEI grounds... [1] it's like the SAT, but for controller jobs instead of college admissions
  - tristor 2y ago
    Perhaps I misunderstood something, but it seems those claims were supported by the evidence of multiple internal memos retrieved via discovery. Another commenter points out that this practice ended in 2018 due to Congress making it illegal, but prior that the FAA had been issuing a biographical assessment as a basis for hiring decisions, exactly as stated in the article. Your own link has the court opinion confirming my understanding of the article. The fact they won the case on procedural grounds is not relevant to the fact the court is opining in the case that the evidence supports a conclusion that the FAA discriminated against "non-diverse" candidates who were otherwise qualified. I think we can all agree that for a role like ATC, the most important thing is that candidates are competent and capable, because it is literally life or death. I have the strong belief that minority candidates are also competent and capable, so discriminatory against "non-diverse" candidates is reprehensible in the strongest terms. I don't think my position here is unusual, unreasonable, or in any way objectionable, and it turns out Congress agreed and made this practice explicitly illegal.
    - gamblor956 2y ago
      The fact they won the case on procedural grounds is not relevant You're misreading both links. They didn't win the case, it's still going. They won a procedural issue that prevented them from automatically losing the case, and recast not losing as true victory. And the importance of my link was that it proves my point not yours: that the plaintiffs were not actually affected by the alleged FAA diversity hiring practices because...again...they never applied for a job in the first place. Everybody railing against the assessment fundamentally misunderstood the test. There are no DEI questions. The test does not ask you what your ethnicity is, or your sex. It's basically just a personality test with biographical data: what is your preferred learning method? how do you respond to high-stress situations? what have you studied? what is your relevant flying/airport experience? how did you learn about the ATCS role? The experience questions alone can get you a of a "passing" score (answers are not weighted equally, but despite popular claims online, all questions are worth at least some points...there are no purely informational questions https://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/default/files/ATC%20Hiring%20Report_issued%20Feb%2015.pdf https://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/default/files/ATC%20Hiring%20R...). The OIG report also states the Biographical Assessment was tested on existing controllers to validate the scoring rubric and refined accordingly, meaning that nobody actually employed as an ATC could fail the BA. And importantly: the validation cohort was overwhelmingly white and male... (And the report also notes that in the 3 years that the BA was in use, there was no change in the ethnic or gender makeup of new ATCS hires.) The plaintiff in the original post you linked supposedly got a 100% on the original test but somehow managed to "fail" a biography test in which more than half of the questions are about their experience in the field or relevant education. If they were being honest about their qualifications, they should have gotten a passing score with plenty of points to spare. Because again...the scoring rubric was validated by testing it on the existing staff of overwhelmingly white male employees...who all passed...
nradov 2y ago
Educated engineers generally don't want to work ATC jobs regardless of pay because they're not engineering jobs. Controllers are operators, not engineers. There are some working controllers with engineering degrees, but almost nothing in typical engineering coursework is directly relevant to the job.

tristor 2y ago

Did you read the link that I replied to? Because in that link, what I am responding to, it EXPLICITLY says that the FAA changed the ATC selection process to exclude candidates based on demographics (being not diverse) regardless of their aptitude as tested using a standardized and validated cognitive assessment. These were candidates who had already completed multiple years of schooling and explicitly wanted to be ATCs, so you are talking about a pipeline problem which may or may not exist but is irrelevant to the article I am responding to in the link above my comment. Per that article, candidates who accepted the pay terms and wanted to become ATCs were /rejected/ explicitly because they were not minorities or otherwise able to produce a biographical or demographic reason for acceptance, even when they scored a perfect score on the standardized aptitude assessment. If you have something to refute the article the person above me linked, I'd love to see it because I'm incredibly disappointed in what I read about in that article.

gamblor956 2y ago
No, you read a link that says people suing the FAA claim the FAA didn't hire qualified candidates on diversity. Except that none of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit actually bothered to apply for jobs with the FAA (see this blog post from their own legal team crowing about winning a procedural matter over whether they had standing to sue given that they never applied for a job and thus were never actually rejected by the FAA https://mslegal.org/press-releases/mslf-prevails-over-faas-attempt-to-dismiss-brigida-hiring-preference-claim/ https://mslegal.org/press-releases/mslf-prevails-over-faas-a... )... What actually happened was that the FAA invalidated a bunch of AT-SAT[1] scores to align with its new diversity policy, and a bunch of people who barely passed the first time didn't want to re-take the test again and risk failing. So they did the American thing and sued instead. The FAA has not rejected qualified candidates on the grounds of "diversity." And at any rate, the controller in the DC tower last night was hired during the Trump administration and the Blackhawk pilot that caused the crash wasn't the kind of candidate who would have been selected on DEI grounds... [1] it's like the SAT, but for controller jobs instead of college admissions
- tristor 2y ago
  Perhaps I misunderstood something, but it seems those claims were supported by the evidence of multiple internal memos retrieved via discovery. Another commenter points out that this practice ended in 2018 due to Congress making it illegal, but prior that the FAA had been issuing a biographical assessment as a basis for hiring decisions, exactly as stated in the article. Your own link has the court opinion confirming my understanding of the article. The fact they won the case on procedural grounds is not relevant to the fact the court is opining in the case that the evidence supports a conclusion that the FAA discriminated against "non-diverse" candidates who were otherwise qualified. I think we can all agree that for a role like ATC, the most important thing is that candidates are competent and capable, because it is literally life or death. I have the strong belief that minority candidates are also competent and capable, so discriminatory against "non-diverse" candidates is reprehensible in the strongest terms. I don't think my position here is unusual, unreasonable, or in any way objectionable, and it turns out Congress agreed and made this practice explicitly illegal.
  - gamblor956 2y ago
    The fact they won the case on procedural grounds is not relevant You're misreading both links. They didn't win the case, it's still going. They won a procedural issue that prevented them from automatically losing the case, and recast not losing as true victory. And the importance of my link was that it proves my point not yours: that the plaintiffs were not actually affected by the alleged FAA diversity hiring practices because...again...they never applied for a job in the first place. Everybody railing against the assessment fundamentally misunderstood the test. There are no DEI questions. The test does not ask you what your ethnicity is, or your sex. It's basically just a personality test with biographical data: what is your preferred learning method? how do you respond to high-stress situations? what have you studied? what is your relevant flying/airport experience? how did you learn about the ATCS role? The experience questions alone can get you a of a "passing" score (answers are not weighted equally, but despite popular claims online, all questions are worth at least some points...there are no purely informational questions https://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/default/files/ATC%20Hiring%20Report_issued%20Feb%2015.pdf https://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/default/files/ATC%20Hiring%20R...). The OIG report also states the Biographical Assessment was tested on existing controllers to validate the scoring rubric and refined accordingly, meaning that nobody actually employed as an ATC could fail the BA. And importantly: the validation cohort was overwhelmingly white and male... (And the report also notes that in the 3 years that the BA was in use, there was no change in the ethnic or gender makeup of new ATCS hires.) The plaintiff in the original post you linked supposedly got a 100% on the original test but somehow managed to "fail" a biography test in which more than half of the questions are about their experience in the field or relevant education. If they were being honest about their qualifications, they should have gotten a passing score with plenty of points to spare. Because again...the scoring rubric was validated by testing it on the existing staff of overwhelmingly white male employees...who all passed...

nradov 2y ago

Educated engineers generally don't want to work ATC jobs regardless of pay because they're not engineering jobs. Controllers are operators, not engineers. There are some working controllers with engineering degrees, but almost nothing in typical engineering coursework is directly relevant to the job.