FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt before the Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies on FY 2010 Budget.  Here are some of the comments he made regarding AT-CTI:

"The partnership between the FAA and the colleges and universities in the Air Traffic Collegiate Training Initiative (AT-CTI) program will continue to contribute to meeting air traffic controller hiring goals in the coming years. In the past five years, AT-CTI schools have graduated more than 4,000 students from their aviation programs, 3,000 of whom were hired by the FAA. Last year, FAA selected eight new colleges and universities to be part of the AT-CTI program, increasing the total number of schools to 31 spread across 21 states and Puerto Rico. This year, we have received applications from 20 new schools across the country. We are evaluating those applications now and expect to make decisions on how many and which schools to add this summer. By FY 2010, we anticipate at least 35 AT-CTI schools in the program graduating 2,000 to 2,500 students per year."

FAA Administrator Henry Krakowski (06/11/2008) before the House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Aviation on Air Traffic Control Facility Staffing.  One part of his statement regarding AT-CTI:

"In October 2007, the FAA chose an additional nine colleges and universities to be part of the Air Traffic Collegiate Training Initiative (AT-CTI) program, which brings the number of schools currently in the program to 23. We plan to continue to offer the opportunity to other schools to apply to the program. This partnership between the FAA and the colleges and universities in the AT-CTI program will contribute to meeting air traffic controller hiring goals in the coming years. This is a hiring source of growing significance for the controller workforce."

In 1989, the FAA established the Air Traffic-Collegiate Training Initiative (AT-CTI) program to “develop, deliver, and implement air traffic control recruiting, selection, and training.” The objective of the program was to develop a professional air traffic controller workforce with college degrees. Under this program, the FAA supplied a baseline curriculum of study described as the “Air Traffic Basics” (AT-Basics) to the colleges. The individual colleges were responsible for teaching the AT-Basics and preparing students for Initial Qualification Training (IQT) at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City.

The CTI program started with just five colleges and grew to 14 in 1997. In 2007, the FAA expanded the program to a total of 36 colleges and universities. When students start a CTI approved program, the college sends the names of students to the FAA for tracking. When students are within a year of graduation, a qualifying exam, the Air Traffic Selection and Training (AT-SAT), is administered to the students by an FAA contractor. The AT-SAT exam is an important qualifier in the hiring process. The AT-SAT exam was subject to much testing and analysis by the FAA prior to implementation to ensure that the exam did not discriminate on the basis of race, gender or national origin - only that it measured aptitude. Although 97% of CTI students pass this exam with a score of 70% or higher, the FAA established a cutoff for hiring at 85%. The other qualifier for hire is a recommendation from the college. The names of recommended CTI graduates are sent to the FAA and are put into a direct hiring pool of CTI-only applicants. When a CTI-only hiring announcement is issued by the FAA, all recommended students are contacted and encouraged to apply. From these CTI applications the FAA then selects persons for hire.

Prior to the introduction of the CTI program, the FAA hired from two main sources. The first was from military-trained controllers who had separated or retired from military service. The second source was through “off the street” (OTS) hiring. OTS hiring brought in candidates without any required air traffic or college experience under a “General Public” hiring announcement. Once hired, OTS candidates had to complete a five-week AT-Basics course at the FAA Academy and were then moved to Initial Qualification training. Problems were identified early on with the OTS hiring program. Besides being very expensive to administer, the aptitudinal quality of candidate was deemed to be unsatisfactory. High washout rates and long training times were among the problems cited. This led to the introduction and implementation of the CTI program.

Since the CTI program was instituted in 1989, most air traffic controller hiring has been through CTI announcements and military controllers. However in 2005, the FAA forecast a controller shortage due to a large number of controllers who were becoming retirement eligible. This group of controllers had been hired after the PATCO strike in 1981. The established CTI colleges were not able to keep up with the need for replacement controllers and a General Public hiring announcement was conducted. At the same time, more CTI schools were approved starting in 2007. Between 2007 to 2011, General Public hiring had over 40,000 applicants who had to be administered the AT-SAT exam and vetted. This is an extremely expensive way to qualify applicants to fill less than 3,000 positions.

At the end of 2012 the FAA announced that it would not be conducting any further General Public hiring since the CTI Colleges and Universities, along with the military pipeline were producing sufficient quantities of qualified applicants to fill hiring requirements. The CTI schools were also asked to complete a voluntary questionnaire on the diversity of their student populations. A report published by the FAA Aviation Careers Office showed that diversity goals were being met in the CTI Colleges.

Sequestration hit government budgets hard during 2013 and no hiring was done for air traffic controllers although there were budgeted funds to do so; meanwhile, the CTI colleges continued to graduate qualified applicants. To date the number of qualified CTI graduates ready to be hired is approximately 3,500. The FAA stopped hiring CTI students for approximately 2 years. During this arbitrary hiring freeze certain elements within the FAA were crafting a scheme to discriminate against CTI students while simultaneously creating a false sense of urgency and demand in order to justify off the street hiring.

On December 30, 2013, over the holiday season, Joseph S. Teixeira, the FAA's Vice President of Safety and Technical Training, sent an email to the CTI institutions stating, in relevant part:

"The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with your organization and values our partnership in the training of potential Air Traffic Controllers (ATC).  Recently, the FAA completed a barrier analysis of the ATC occupation pursuant to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) Management Directive 715. As a result of the analysis, recommendations were identified that we are implementing to improve and streamline the selection of ATC candidates. These improvements will have a direct and present impact on all hiring sources, including CTI.”

The FAA has approximately 3,500 CTI-graduates that are already qualified to be hired. In addition, the FAA's own studies show that the “The AT-CTI application source has the applicant pool with the highest proportion of applicants meeting the minimum qualification across ethnic subgroups.” (Barrier Analysis Report, p 36.). “Adverse impact was not observed for CTI at any point in the hiring process, though the qualification rate was very high in general.”  (Extension to the Barrier Analysis p 7).

Subsequently, CTI schools were invited to participate in a TELECONFERENCE on January 8, 2014. Listen to the TELECON here.

Joseph Teixara's email of December 30th (above) states that the whole reason for the changes to the FAA's hiring practice was the analysis allegedly in accord with EEOC Management Directive MD-715. While listening to Teixeira and cohorts recite from a scripted narrative during the TELECON, keep in mind that the FAA had already released the plan to conduct OTS hiring to certain special interest groups long before notifying the CTI institutions they had done so. In this tape-recorded telecon discussion you will hear Teixeira and cohorts repeatedly deny colluding with any outside special interest groups among other interesting untruths. They also incredulously deny that the hiring changes are due to "diversity" issues mentioned throughout the Outtz EEOC MD-715 "barrier" analysis.  EEOC MD-715 DOES NOT require agencies to establish racial or ethnic preferences or quotas. Indeed, federal anti-discrimination laws and EEOC's policies require that agencies prohibit discrimination, including "reverse" discrimination.

A transcript of the TELECON is available here.....