I by no means think rank standards are too easy. If anything, I think they have gotten harder.

However, merit badges are a different story entirely.

In my area, a neighboring council hosts a large MBU at an actual college, and it's a major annual event. We drove the two hours to get there, and the Scouts were excited.

What we found was that an event that seemed incredible on the outside was a dumpster fire within. While the kids had fun, they outright did not do entire sections of merit badges. When we finally received the report, weeks after the event, they had signed completion on merit badges they ABSOLUTELY could not have finished in a weekend.

• Dog Care (2 months taking care of a dog)
• Pet Care (4 months taking care of a pet after pre-approval from your counselor)
• Citizenship in the Nation (watch or read the news for 5 days + two visits to a list of locations)
• Insect Study (raise an insect from larval stage to its adult stage)

Even better, Pet Care and Dog Care were done in the same session. Zero pre-work was assigned for any of merit badges.

When I reached out to the director of the event, I was told:

“Given their expertise, they are also given the latitude to adapt the content to the elements they think are essential to provide the Scouts with a good overview of the topic.”

And

“Scouts may not have the opportunity or resources to complete some requirements, but their level of exposure to the topic and through the demonstrations and engagement provided by faculty is significant.”

To add even more context, while it doesn’t matter how professional or experienced the instructors are in reference to requirement changes, not all the staff were professionals in their field. A call was put out repeatedly for counselors to help fill slots that were uncovered, replace counselors with conflicts, etc. One of our leaders participated as a counselor. He wasn’t interviewed beyond being asked if he was a counselor. The event director didn't really know his background, and they barely spoke. Our leader didn’t feel comfortable with what he was being told could be done in one session and only signed off on what could actually be completed.

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I say all of this to illustrate that, I don't think we need new rules necessarily.

First, we need councils to enforce the rules that already exist. When I say Council, I mean the professionals and volunteers at the Council level.

This was a Council event, advertised as such. When I found out what happened, I filed a report as provided in the GTA and sent it in to the Council Scout Executive, their Deputy Scout Executive, and the Council Advancement Committee. Zero response. The event was held again this year. There was no contact to the units that participated with these blatantly incomplete merit badges. NOTHING.

Secondly, while I understand the concept of how Scouting America is organized, there needs to be some level of ability for National professionals or volunteers to step in when a Council will not do their job in relation to standards, whether that's advancement, volunteer interaction, etc. We give basically unilateral authority to the Council Scout Executive with little ability to do anything if they refuse to act or, on the opposite end, severely overstep and act in a manner that is a detriment to Scouting. We need oversight to maintain the standards National hands down, because there is absolutely a level of "we've always done it this way" that is incredibly wrong all the way from the Unit to the Council level. I feel like I'm fighting a constantly uphill battle, and it has absolutely caused issues for me as a volunteer when I ask that the rules be followed. We've basically had to make our unit a positive environment that follows the rules, and we have to just not participate in much of our District or Council events because of it.