"The president came up, greeted my wife and I, and here's what he said... : 'You go after everything you want to go after. You look into anything you want to look at.'" - Rep. Jason Chaffetz
tl;dr A detailed analysis of the problems with FAA Academy evaluations is available here. We encourage any members of government oversight organizations to review this information and to gain first-hand accounts from those who have directly experienced it in recent years.

On Tuesday, January 31st, 2017 during a televised business meeting of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the committee, shared with the committee members and the American people a conversation he had with President Donald Trump.

"If you sat there and heard what he said to me about pursuing oversight of the government and the function that we fulfill, you'd be pretty inspired. And it was inspiring to me. And for him to convey a message of 'Don't slow down,' 'Go do your job; there's a lot to get after with the government,' I think it was a good message."

We think so, too, Mr. Chairman. That's why we encourage you and your committee members and staffs to follow FixFAA.org, where we are dedicated to exposing the rampant, ongoing waste of resources and taxpayer dollars at the Federal Aviation Administration Academy in Oklahoma City, OK.

Mr. Chairman, the United States is suffering from a record-breaking shortage of air traffic control specialists, who are responsible for separating all aircraft in our nation's skies. During testimony before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee last summer, it was made readily apparent by Chairman Shuster and the National Air Traffic Controllers' Association Vice President Paul Rinaldi that this shortage is real and is creating serious challenges for the FAA. When air traffic control facilities are short staffed, the safety of the flying public is compromised. Whether or not the FAA wants to admit it, safety is being compromised every day due to widespread fatigue among already-certified controllers at FAA facilities.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has done a decent job asking questions about the hiring process for air traffic control specialists, but they have not even begun to touch issues concerning the operation of the FAA Academy, a division of the FAA Office of Finance and Management. We urge your committee to investigate these matters immediately.

The most pressing issue at the FAA Academy is the skyrocketing washout rate in the Tower Cab Initial Qualification Training Program, the initial training program for tower controllers who work in air traffic control towers across the United States. A significant change was made to the program in the fall of 2013, specifically with regard to how trainees' final evaluations are conducted. Some FAA officials misleadingly refer to these as mere "curriculum changes" in front of Congress and the public.

Trainees at the FAA Academy are heavily screened before being extended offers of employment. By the time they reach the end of their training courses at the FAA Academy, it is estimated that each trainee costs the U.S. taxpayer close to $100,000 on pre-employment screening, training in the Air Traffic Basics program, training in their career track-specific training program, salary, and per diem allotments for housing and food. Yet, just days before trainees are supposed to be selecting their first field facility work locations, they are oftentimes completely eliminated from the FAA training program -- all because of the way the FAA Academy conducts its end-of-course, "sudden death"-style evaluations.

In the Eyes of the Air Traffic Organization, All of This Is a "Good Thing."


Although the FAA has not publicly addressed their massive increases in training failures in the Tower Cab Initial Qualification Training Program, the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Air Traffic Organization (ATO), Teri Bristol, testified to Congress during a June 2016 hearing of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that the FAA Academy's washout rate in the en-route training program (the sister of the tower training program) was "close to 30%." That was a blatant obfuscation, as the real number is much closer to 50% or greater.

Unfortunately, the washout rate for the tower training program, the center of our concern, was circumstantially concealed from public understanding, as it was not directly brought up by any of the committee members. Then Congressman Davis asked, "Has the FAA determined the reasons why an increasing number of its controller candidates are not making the grade [at the FAA Academy]?" According to Ms. Bristol, the FAA "wanted to standardize the performance verification (PV) process" (otherwise known as the evaluation process) so that it "didn't see as many failures in the field." She went on to say: "If a trainee can't make it through, we'd rather see that happen earlier in the process than later in the process because we continue to pay for that employee's development [when he or she is allowed to continue training in a field facility]. ... We don't see that necessarily as a bad thing, but completely, I don't think we have enough information yet to understand."

To Ms. Bristol's credit, there is nothing wrong with identifying a poorly-performing trainee early in his or her training. This practice would indeed save the government thousands of dollars more than it spends on trainees during their time at the academy. But this is not what the FAA Academy is presently doing -- at all. Instead, the FAA Academy is basing 90% of a trainee's performance grade on a series of 4 evaluations conducted during the last 3 days of training -- after trainees have already spent 15 weeks at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City. Despite leaving massive paper trails of excellent performance, hiccups that occur in simulators at the FAA Academy during evaluations routinely compromise the careers of dozens if not hundreds of trainee air traffic control specialists.

FAA Academy management applies no common sense whatsoever to the decision to terminate otherwise very solidly-performing trainees. They take the easy route of instantly terminating a trainee rather than do any serious holistic assessments of the trainee's progress throughout the course. No other government training program, including the air traffic control training programs in the Air Force and Navy, operate in this manner. (Trust us -- we've looked.)

The real question that is left unasked and unanswered, is "How does the FAA Academy determine that tower trainees are unsuitable for continuing their employment?" Congress, please ask this question next time.

What Ms. Bristol is describing -- the "weeding out" of trainees who do not perform -- is not happening. Instead, trainees are washing out not because of their knowledge or performance deficiencies, but because of technical problems in the FAA equipment used during evaluations, coupled with serious mismanagement in the evaluation process itself.

Rep. Chaffetz, Please Make This a Priority


To Rep. Chaffetz and other members of the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform: we urge you to take up these matters in your committee. Make FAA Academy officials answer the tough questions about its washout rate, about its ridiculous cumulative grading system, and about why it relies on unreliable technology for the training of air traffic controllers. Help us make sense of the nonsensical.

You have the authority to investigate whatever you want to investigate. Please contact us when you are ready to investigate this.

We have detailed an expansive overview of the FAA Academy evaluation process here. We encourage any government oversight organization to investigate these matters seriously.