Item — HN Reader

So how it works is there's a selection process to go to ATC school/training.

Just getting into training doesn't mean you get to be a controller, you get tested a lot and hard with very representative work (a close relative failed this actually), and only get to be an ATC if you pass well enough.

I think maybe you misread the article, because it explicitly says "Note that leaving behind qualified applicants from Collegiate Training isn’t why we don’t have more controllers"

2 comments

But if the standard to get into school was lowered (not saying it was as I have no evidence), that it would alter the output. If not in quality then in volume.

The author's argument is that aptitude requirements did not change, but what changed is that some candidates were now less experienced after not having gone through ATC degrees. (But the author doesn't attribute the tragedy to that, in any case, so speculating about a counterfactual is something else.)

I saw that. But it's laced with political overtones. The question is not just # of controllers, it's the quality of controllers.

Have they lowered the standards to get through ATC school? What is the truth?

Just asking so I have ammunition against right-wing arguments.

I assume you want ammunition against your own arguments. But I'm confused about what you're asking: you were talking in your original comment about the _admissions_ process to ATC academy, and now you're talking about the process to _graduate_ from ATC academy. So let me see if I'm clear about what you're asking: despite the fact that aptitude requirements to get into ATC academy did not change, are you asking about whether the standards to _leave_ ATC academy were lowered? What would an answer to that question prove?

No, they haven’t lowered the standard to graduate.

How do you know? Do you work for FAA?

We wouldn't have to guess and allow for right-wing conjectures if FAA were just transparent on the process and if any changes have been made.

> We wouldn't have to guess and allow for right-wing conjectures if FAA were just transparent on the process and if any changes have been made.

There's no world where you out-research every conspiracy theory, especially all the right-wing ones during an Trump/RFK/Musk era.

But for what it's worth the family member who failed was a minority, even though my father was an ATC, so all else being equal you'd expect them to have a relatively good set of chances (just due to genes, if that's a thing).