Scouting's Real Crisis Is Not Marketing. It Is Decades of Neglect. (opens in new tab)

Today's reality is that 90% of BSA's high schoolers are stuck in its middle-school program. They aren't getting age-level programming.

BSA has never strongly denied this. Instead, it acts as if handing the reins of its middle-school program to high schoolers constitutes age-level programming for high schoolers. It does not.

It even further muddies the water, recommending mixed-age patrols. Yes, for real, your freshly crossed-over 10 year old is supposed to be in the same patrol as a 17 yo high-school senior. That is weird. But BSA thinks it's appropriate.

To be clear, I think cross-age-band interactions can have value, but they must be optional, and they must never displace age-level programming. I have separately proposed a new position called Guide. It is a position of responsibility where any youth may elect to help with any younger program. This is a service role, not supervision, not displacing younger youth from owning their program. This replaces Den Chief, Instructor, Junior Asst. Scoutmaster, and Troop Guide.

But importantly, and to reemphasize, Guide must be OPTIONAL. Scouting in no way depends on cross-age-band interactions. They are a value add when they work well. But the BSA view on these interactions resembles a fetish and lacks a rational basis.

it's not. the problem is that the teenagers are not given any real authority that would be appropriate for their age. but then on their 18th birthday they suddenly become assistant scoutmasters with the expectation of real authority that comes with that title. so they become leaders simply because of their age, and not by merit or experience. in germany a patrol is a self functioning unit with their own meeting times or spaces. a patrol leader is someone who has been shown to be mature and patrols are able to plan and execute their own events and trips without an adult needing to be present. in the US that rarely happens. that's not just a BSA problem though, it is a problem of american culture in general. anyone under the age of 18 is treated like a child.

In the USA, the Mormon church disaffiliated their programme from them a few years ago and that was a big blow to them too since a lot of LDS kids were members.

1) The BSA national organization sized itself in the 1970s based on the idea that membership would continue to increase forever. The national organization is grossly oversized relative to the needs of the troops. The result is that the national organizations needs are at odds with the troops needs. The national organization is primarily focused on funding itself, including its debt, which creates a net burden for troops. 2) This net burden manifests itself in multiple ways at the troop level including using troops for fund raising efforts for the national organization where little if any of the funds make it back to the troop, increasingly irrelevant mandatory merit badge requirements to appease national donors who want to make their mark (reducing scout choices) and increasingly expensive costs for camps and equipment. 3) Lack of a solid development program for Scoutmasters. Few men in corporate America truly know how to manage or lead anymore. This rot started in the 1970s when computer programs replaced middle management and operations was largely outsourced. Outdoor skills have eroded as the population became more urbanized. Scoutmasters can’t teach what they don’t know and the national organization hasn’t filled that gap. For example compare BSA with NOLS for quality of their skills training. 4) Without a strong selection and development program for scoutmasters there is no prestige. Corporate America’s doesn’t see it as a place to develop leadership from but a distraction. That means that the people the scouting organization can draw from are the very, very good and the very, very bad. 5) Sexual abuse is a significant problem for any youth development organization and that fact was ignored by the BSA for way too long. The majority of perpetrators are men. As an organization with a declining pool of volunteers to draw adult leadership from the ratio of abusers who volunteer is going to be uncomfortably high. Courts and the court of public opinion have shown that there is no limit to the liability for this type of behavior. This is a strong signal that American’s simply do not want youth programs where this kind of thing can happen. 6) Being an adult leader of a youth organization comes with breathtakingly high amount of personal liability. Simply moving a car full of youth from one place to another risks financial devastation. The BSA does little to nothing to mitigate that risk and the only other way to mitigate that is through 1:1 youth to parent involvement where children are under direct, parental supervision at all times. This is antithetical to a youth lead program like the BSA.

It's hard to learn of problems with something we deeply invested in. I've been there. It took me years to work through this struggle and come to these positions.

But I find there's an excellent case that BSA can do much better. And it must, or it's going to collapse within 10 years.

The good thing is "do better" is right in front of us. It means catching up with international peers, adopting lessons learned from and norms in our own society, and eliminating irrational deviations from longstanding notions of what Scouting is.

To them, SA = sexual assault.