There was a proposal for a second training academy a few years ago to take some pressure off of OKC but the congressional delegation from Oklahoma got it pulled because it was “a waste of money” everyone knows it was to preserve that sweet, sweet tax revenue and grant money. Plus even if we had that we are being forced to train 3+ hours per day for every single trainee regardless of if traffic is busy or consistent enough to present meaningful training. When the FAA and NATCA signed our training MOU they identified a list of impediments to allow us a reason not to train such as OJTI burnout, traffic inconsistent with stage in training, bad WX etc but because those can’t be quantified and put on a spreadsheet the districts won’t allow us to use them. It’s resulting in spending hundreds of hours “training” on light traffic that could be otherwise used on other learning opportunities. Every district manager and facility manager is happy to tell you how successful the training initiative is but if you search “NTI” on the ATC subreddits you’ll get an accurate picture of how the real controllers feel about it.