Guide to Advancement

The Advancement Team (professional) and National Advancement Committee (volunteer) will be doing updates to the education materials going forward, including the approved national advancement trainers, Advancement News articles, the advancement webinars and many other resources.

For those who have concerns about merit badges, go see the changes to section 7 - quite a few changes that will address the most egregious issues. http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/33088.pdf

I found this to be an interesting rant that goes hand in hand with this topic.

Despite this advancement document, there are still councils and districts that will cut corners, quite often by interpreting what minimum performance is needed to fulfill a requirement -- or even what cutting the definiation of "advancement" altogether. Some would claim advancement is only the specific rank requirements and not the underlying award requirements. Case in point: We attended a camp this summer (in week 3) that cut corners on MB requirements. We know it because our adults monitor classes. In one case, the rifle instructors (military and NRA) found out they were using old -- and harder qualifying -- requirements because no one could figure out why only a handful were shooting well enough to qualify.When figuring out they had on old book ,they got he correct MB book. In at least two other MB classes our adults noticed that they didn't even attempt to do one or two requirements because these were not listed in the book (in one case the book was 8 years old and NOT the current one). Our scouts still had to do the requirements for us to complete the badge.

I worked at our local summer camp 4 different years, twice as an area director. I know for a fact that problems like the ones mentioned above happen more often then most of us want to admit.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this issue, on facebook...