The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's acting inspector general has found that certain questions on a test for airport security workers were very simplistic or worded in such a way as to make the correct answer obvious. Furthermore, the official observed that trainers rehearsed most of the questions with trainees prior to the test.
The observations were contained in a letter from Acting Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin to Sen. Charles Schumer of New York. Schumer, who had contacted the agency in response to a report of problems in training activities at LaGuardia airport, released the letter Oct. 8 at the request of the Wall Street Journal.
The senator was quoted in the New York Times on October 9 as saying, "When you read the test, you'd think it was written by Jay Leno's scriptwriters rather than by a testing agency."
The inspector general's review characterized the TSA training as a system that "maximized the likelihood that students would pass."
The Transportation Security Administration had hired a private company to provide training and testing materials. TSA also had hired another company to train screeners, and that company had subcontracted another company to administer the tests.
"These shortcomings point to the need for independent, unbiased third-party testing and certification of screeners-by someone other than those responsible for staffing and training," said Melissa Hartman, chair of ASQ's Certification Board.
Hartman is part of a team from ASQ that submitted a proposal more than a year and a half ago to the TSA volunteering the ASQ certification process for certifying airport security screeners.
"One of the main points we made in talking to TSA was the need for the agency to instill confidence that the screeners safeguarding air transportation have indeed passed through and mastered a rigorous body of knowledge," Hartman stated. "You can't do that by feeding students the answers to softball questions."
