fgoodwin

ALL: I'm guilty of the very haughtiness that many accuse of WBers. WBers are no better than any other Scouter -- if I gave that impression, I apologize. Fred

OGE, I didn't mean to imply that you thought this was an urban legend -- I know you did no such thing. But there are those who deny it ever happened, simply because the most commonly cited source of the story is the Washington Times. Well, it DID happen, and those skeptics can't ignore the LA Times as easily as they do that "Moonie" paper. You also asked if the booing was led or staged by the Democratic leadership -- I ask again, how does that make any difference?

So far, no one has responded honestly to Funscout's hypothetical. This tells me that the advocates of girls & gays in the Boy Scouts haven't really thought through the implications of what they are promoting. Funscout asks a serious question that deserves a serious response. So, let us assume for the sake of argument that BSA sees the error of its ways and admits girls and gays (both youth and adults). I assume that, unless BSA policy changes, male & female leaders will continue to tent separately (unless married). Can I further assume that even the advocates of girls & gays in Scouting do not promote "straight" boys and girls tenting together? Because otherwise, co-ed campouts will turn into a game of couples sneaking away from the leaders to see how far they can go w/o getting caught. If you don't think so, you're being nave; at that age, their hormones will be out of control, especially in a dark tent, at night, away from their parents. So unless you want a bunch of pregnant girls and angry parents in your face, I will assume we can all agree that the best policy is to keep straight boys and girls in separate tents; no need to tempt fate, right? So, what do we do with the gay boys and girls? You surely can't tent a gay boy with another gay boy (or lesbian girl with another lesbian girl). That's a recipe for disaster, just as tenting straight boys and girls together. Even without the risk of preganancy, there is still the risk of AIDS, hurt feelings when couples break-up, etc. So, for sleeping purposes, do you pair a straight youth with a gay youth? Or do all youth sleep alone? That doubles the number of tents you need as well as the size of the camping area. Even if the youth are under strict "no fraternization" orders, how long do you think it will take before they pair up and sneak off into the woods? Again, if you don't think it will happen, I submit you're being nave. How about shower arrangements? Surely no one suggests that straight boys and girls should shower at the same time. But do you really want all the gay boys showering at the same time? How is that any different? Do you want a gay leader showering with a straight leader? I know I would not be comfortable with that, because even where there are individual shower stalls, we all know there are common dress areas where privacy is very little if at all. Would a straight woman be comfortable showering at the same time as a straight man? Is that any different that a straight man being asked to shower at the same time as a gay man? So, what do the advocates of girls and gays say about sleeping and shower arrangements? Have you really thought this through?

In another thread, a question was asked in regards to the booing of the Boy Scouts color guard: "is there any proof it was set up by the Democratic leadership at the time?" I don't know if it was "planned" in advance, if that's what you mean. But does that really matter? Do you think that would've made a difference to the boys and adults who heard the booing? In any event, here is a direct quote from the original article that broke the story, in the Aug 17 LA Times:CONVENTION 2000 / THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION; NOTES; Rooms: $260, Phones Extra; A Walk on the Wild Side; [Home Edition] Faye Fiore and Steve Chawkins. Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, Calif.: Aug 17, 2000. pg. 4 No Gaiety Over Pledge; Full-Frontal Tipper In Philadelphia, we learned, a crowd once booed Santa Claus. But members of the usually mellow California delegation trumped Philly on Tuesday night when they booed the Boy Scouts leading conventioneers in the pledge of allegiance. The Scouts don't allow openly gay leaders, and their presence onstage did not sit well with some of the 434 Californians, 34 of whom are openly gay. "It's such an affront," Assemblywoman Carole Migden of San Francisco complained after the Scouts disbanded their Norman Rockwell montage. "We're going to pursue who made this decision and why and make sure it doesn't happen again." But this is L.A., after all, so no one was heard to protest an oil painting showing a full-frontal self-portrait of a nude and pregnant Tipper Gore that popped up in a Spike Jonze video shown in the hall Wednesday and carried on C-SPAN.I know there are many who don't believe this really happened, simply because the primary source on the Internet is a much lengthier story from the Washington Times that came out a day later. But the quote above is from the original source, the Los Angeles Times. Unfortunately, the LA Times article is no longer available on the Internet, but if you have access to Infotrac at your local library, you can easily confirm the above is an accurate quote. The Boy Scouts most assuredly were booed by some Democrats at the 2000 Convention -- it is not an urban legend or something conservatives made up.

ManassasEagle, you are absolutely correct, and I apologize to my fellow Scouters who are non-WBers. The examples I cited were those I know personally about, and they were done by WBers who saw the need, and did it. As I said, the projects could have been done by non-WBers, such as yourself. But in the particular cases I know of, the projects were done by WBers. I know that many Scouters, WBers and non-WBers alike, go far beyond the call of duty, and I certainly meant no disrespect to those who have not been through WB.

'Mommy, I Know You' http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10965127/ A feminist scholar explains how the study of girls can teach us about boys. By Carol Gilligan, Newsweek Jan. 30, 2006 issue - As the mother of three sons, I have attended my share of hand-wringing parent-teacher conferences. Having read "Tom Sawyer" and "Catcher in the Rye," I know that boys and school don't mix. That boys are having trouble with school is not news. But images of rough-and-tumble boys not fit for the classroom now may blind us to a problem that has less to do with how boys seem and more with who they actually arebut are not allowed to show. We are only a generation away from the time when girls were effectively off the map. To take one example: the 1980 "Handbookof Adolescent Psychology" concluded that adolescent girls "have simply not been much studied." By bringing girls and women into research on human development, I and others discovered that their exclusion did more than hurt them. It distorted our understanding of boys as well. Both sexes suffer when one is not understood. This is not a zero-sum game. Several decades ago, revolutionary psychological research on women led to a reframing of such concepts as intelligence and self. A new set of terms"emotional intelligence," "relational self" and, most recently, the "feeling brain"heralded a cultural shift. Emotions and relationships, once associated with women and therefore with limitation, are now understood to enhance intelligence and the self, and have become desirable attributes of manhood. The study of adolescent girls bears on problems boys have with school by solving a longstanding psychological puzzle. Adolescence for girls is often marked by the sudden appearance of signs of distress, such as depression and eating disorders. Girls' adolescence is comparable in this respect to an earlier time in boys' development, one that coincides with the onset of formal schooling. Around the ages of 5, 6 and 7, boys often begin for the first time to show signs of depression as well as learning and speech disorders. Because girls, by adolescence, are mature enough to recognize and reflect on what's happening to them, they reveal a process of initiation that exacts a psychological cost. Seventeen-year-old Iris, the valedictorian of her class, observes, "If I were to say what I was thinking and feeling, no one would want to be with me; my voice would be too loud." Boys as well as girls can read the human world astutely. Four-year-old Sam asked his mother one day, "Mommy, why are you sad?" Wanting to shield him from her sadness, she replied, "I'm not sad." Sam said, "Mommy, I know you. I was inside you." Yet when this kind of emotional openness, sensitivity and connectedness are seen to compromise masculinity, boys often repudiate these human qualities. If boys can be encouraged to embrace them, these qualities will develop, expanding their capacity for relationships and also their sense of themselves. The implications of this for school were brought home to me by an incident involving one of my sons. He was in the second grade, and a sign on the blackboard read, DON'T BE AFRAID TO ASK. One day, when the teacher chastised a boy for asking a question, my son called out, "Don't be afraid to ask," and promptly got into trouble. His first-grade teacher, recounting the story to me, recognized a sensitivity and honesty she had encouraged and valued. What often appears as boys' intransigence, as disruptiveness, indifference or confrontation, may instead be a refusal to engage in false relationship. It is in the adamancy of this refusal that boys will be boys, turning away from rather than seeking to repair or smooth over such ruptures as girls tend to do. This may explain why more boys disconnect from school. It also suggests, as my work with girls has shown, that an effective strategy for preventing boys' psychological difficulties and educational problems would involve recognizing their sensitivities, building honest relationships and strengthening a healthy capacity for resistance. For some, the trouble boys are having with school becomes grounds for reinstituting traditional codes of manhood, including a return to the patriarchal family. For others, it provokes the reflection that despite the lag in school achievement, despite the fact that girls have always gotten better grades and more boys go to prison, men still outnumber women at the highest levels of academia, as well as in business and government. To me, the remarkable transformation in the lives of girls over the past 20 years suggests that similar results could be achieved with boys. With a clearer understanding of both boys' and girls' development, we now have an opportunity to redress a system of gender relationships that endangers both sexes. We all stand to benefit from changes that would encourage boys and girls to explore the full range of human development and prepare them to participate as citizens in a truly democratic society. Gilligan is the author of "In a Different Voice" and "The Birth of Pleasure." She is a university professor at NYU.

Chartered Organization and Council Responsibilities The chartered organization agrees to: Conduct the Scouting program according to its own policies and guidelines, as well as those of the Boy Scouts of America. Appoint a chartered organization representative who is a member of the organization and who will coordinate all Scout unit operations within it. He or she will represent it to the Scouting district and serve as a voting member of the local council. The chartered organization head or chartered organization representative must approve all leader applications to ensure that the individuals meet the organizations standards as well as the standards of leadership of the Boy Scouts of America. Ref: New Unit Organization Process, page 13 (34196A, 2002 edition) Sounds to me like LDS is following the program with respect to who and how it selects its Troop and Pack leaders.

Be prepared to open books http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060125/OPINION/601250369/1029 http://tinyurl.com/a8uud Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 01/25/06 The Monmouth Council of Boy Scouts sent out letters to troop leaders and Scoutmasters last week informing them that parents will now be required to pay an annual fee of $52 per Scout to help the council get out of a financial hole. Previously, there had been only a one-time $10 registration fee. The council says it is more than $1 million in debt, $252,000 of which is already considered past due, despite having had a balanced budget as recently as four years ago. Scout leaders and parents of Scouts deserve to know how the council got into its fiscal mess. Until it provides a full accounting of its revenues and expenses over the past few years, parents should hold off on paying the annual fee. In addition to the $52 per Scout fee, the council also is asking for voluntary matching donations from parents. The fees and donations are to be used as a guaranteed source of income to help the council obtain a mortgage to consolidate its debt. The council already included in its new budget the $390,000 it would receive if each of Monmouth County's 7,937 Scouts pays the fee. That "spend-it-before-you-get-it" mentality may offer some clues as to why the district is in trouble. There is ample reason to believe that many parents particularly those with multiple children in Scouting will have their children drop out rather than pay the fee. Lee Marconi, who took over as the council's executive director Oct. 1, said several building projects at Scout camps were underfunded because some anticipated financial backing didn't materialize. He also said the council relied too heavily on borrowing to pay the bills. That fiscal mismanagement has proved costly. Marconi says he is preparing a binder of financial information for each district, including past years' budgets and council audits. That information should have been provided before, not after, parents were notified about the mandatory annual fee. And the information should be made available to every Scouting parent. The Monmouth council's huge buildup of debt in such a short period of time is disturbing. Council leaders said a review by the Boy Scouts national office last year blamed the problem on the council's lackluster fund-raising efforts. Yet the council's 2004 annual report boasts that its fund-raising arm, Friends of Scouting, set an "all-time record" of $210,000. In addition, the report said the $435,730 in gross popcorn sales by the council's Scouts exceeded its goal, and ranked first in the Northeast Region in sales growth and profit margin. It also said membership was up 22 percent over the last three years, and that the council's move from its longtime home in Ocean Township to larger quarters in Marlboro was done "for almost no cost." The Monmouth Council of Girl Scouts a separate organization reports its members pay an annual $10 registration fee that goes directly to the national organization, yet it is financially secure. Boy Scouts in Ocean County pay annual dues of $75. Annual fees may be a new reality for the Monmouth council as well, but it owes every Scouting parent a full explanation of the debt and how the council's financial picture has changed in recent years. Unless and until it has done that, the council shouldn't expect an extra cent from any of its members.

Boy Scouts' values never go out of style http://www.masslive.com/metroeastplus/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-1/113809302726260.xml&coll=1 http://tinyurl.com/au8ya Wednesday, January 25, 2006 SPRINGFIELD - Boy Scouts' values may seem old-fashioned in today's culture, but many would argue they are needed more than ever. Scouting sets a goal of helping parents with their sons' development of strong values and healthy minds and bodies. Scouting helps build self-esteem and keeps youth positively involved in the community. Can this make a meaningful difference in the lives of inner-city youth? Nathan Ramos and his mom, Wanda Miranda, say yes. Ramos, 20, has been a Scout for nearly 10 years. Miranda, a single mother, enrolled him in Scouting on the advice of family friend Herb Colon, who was Scoutmaster for Troop 9 in Springfield's North End. "I wanted Nathan to get the things a father gives a son that I couldn't do," Miranda says. At first Ramos didn't like it, but Miranda made him go. "My mom was a single parent and saw my interest in outdoor stuff that I knew she didn't want to do, so she got me in Scouting," Ramos said with a laugh. "She had to push me at first but I grew to love it." United Way, in partnership with the Boy Scouts, funds programs for at-risk youth in Springfield and Holyoke. "Scouting provides a great way for young people, particularly inner-city boys, to learn skills they can use all through life, to help develop character and gain a sense of self-esteem," explained Larry Bystran, executive director of the Boy Scouts Pioneer Valley Council. Colon, commissioner of the Springfield district, has been promoting Scouting to urban youth for 18 years. "We need to make sure every youth in urban communities is aware of Scouting. Kids can get a lot from Scouting if they are able to participate." United Way funds did a lot for Ramos. "I never would have been able to go camping if it wasn't for United Way," Ramos said. "I really like getting outdoors and learning to do things you can't do in the city like camping, cooking, building a fire, learning to take care of yourself. It's good to get away from all the sirens and the negative stuff." Ramos' Scouting career has had many high points. He's been to the National Jamboree in Fredericksburg, Va., twice; first in 2001 as a youth Scout and again in 2005 when he represented the area council as an assistant junior Scoutmaster. He achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest in Scouting, in 2004, after taking on the challenge of building a new food pantry for his church. "It took awhile to accomplish, but it was really worth it. Some kids rush through their Eagle project but I took my time to get it done. I got the full experience I could have gotten out of Scouting." But his relationship with Colon has touched Ramos the most. "Mr. Colon treated all of us like we were young adults. He was always behind us to make sure we accomplished our goals," he said. "Herbie is more than my troop leader - he is my mentor. He became like my second father. He is always there for me." Colon agrees. "I took Nathan in and mentored him. His father was never there for him so I tried to be a father figure, guide him and help him set some goals for himself," Colon said. The relationship became so close that at his Eagle Scout Court of Honor, Ramos pinned his Father Pin on Colon, an emotional moment for both of them. Miranda is a strong supporter of Scouting. "Scouting made Nathan a leader; it has opened up so many doors for him," she said. "He found a whole new population of friends and mentors." Scouting is a big part of both of their lives. Through the years, and with encouragement from Colon, Miranda herself has become very involved, making it to the upper levels of Leadership training by earning her Wood Badge. She now leads a Venture Crew troop in Springfield, a coed youth development program of Scouting available to youth 14 through 20 years of age. "I'm faithful to the Boy Scouts," she says. "I want to stay with my boys. I know we will always be involved with Scouting." Ramos, who has been involved in military programs at school since the age of 16, credits the skills and leadership qualities he learned in Scouting for getting him into the Reserve Officer Training Corps. Last week Ramos left for six months of basic training in the Army National Guard. "When I get back, me and a friend are going to start a new troop. I figure the best way I can thank Scouting is to give back," he said. Colon sees more in Ramos' future. "Nathan has come a long way in Scouting. He's been a role model for the rest of the kids in the troop. I see him as a community leader in the future and Scouting has played a huge role in that."

The Reading MB is one small way Scouting can address this issue. I'm sure there are others.

I guess one might ask the same question about any training: is there any observable difference between Scouters who've been to basic training vs. those who have not? Between those who've taken YPT vs. those who have not? BALOO? WLOT? Pow-Wow? Roundtable? PTC? SOAPBOX MODE ON If there isn't, and there's no reason to go, then why are *any* of them offered? Are we all wasting our time taking (and teaching) these courses? I can't speak for anyone but myself -- but I find I usually get something out of every course I take, and I normally find something new even when I retake a course. What you get out of a training is a direct function of what you put into it. So I guess the question I suggest you ask yourself is: what are you willing to put into it? Back to the difference between those who've been to WB and those who have not: maybe the difference isn't so much in the individuals, but in the units they populate. WBers are supposed to "work a ticket" that somehow benefits their unit. Not to say that non-WBers can't benefit a unit with their own projects, but I'll bet you'd be surprised to learn how many ways WBers have benefitted their units: that Webelos crossover bridge that a WBer built as a ticket item for his son's pack, even tho his son was only a Wolf at the time; the PWD track a WBer built for his son's pack so the pack wouldn't have to annually rent a track from a neighboring pack; that pack to troop index that WDLs use to identify nearby troops to visit, etc. Look around you; I bet you'll find WB ticket items everywhere. Could those projects have been done by non-WBers? Of course . . . but were they? No, they were done as WB ticket items. /SOAPBOX MODE OFF

It's No Contest: Boys Will Be Men, and They'll Still Choose Video Games http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34784-2004Dec4.html By Patrick Welsh Sunday, December 5, 2004; Page B01 Jake Stephens, a senior in my AP English class at T.C. Williams High School, is hooked. "The narrative is so exciting you lose all track of time," he said to me last week. "Three hours can go by and it seems like 15 minutes. Once I'm into it, it's hard to think of anything else; all my focus is on finishing the story line." Was Jake talking about "All the Pretty Horses," the novel I'm currently having my students read? I wish. Personally, I find Cormac McCarthy's coming-of-age cowboy tale enthralling, with its tragic love story, graphic violence and lyrical writing. But Jake probably thinks it's pretty tame. He's seduced by a different kind of narrative -- the car-stealing frenzy of one of his favorite video games, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I've known for a long time that a lot of the boys in my English classes are more interested in connecting with their Xboxes in the evening than with the next three chapters of Toni Morrison's "Song of Solomon." But ever since I observed their mounting hysteria over last month's "premiere" of Halo 2, the new combat game from Microsoft, I've been trying to find out what's behind the lure of video games. As the boys I teach have endeavored to enlighten me, I haven't known whether to laugh, cry, or go find a new job. What they told me has me wondering how what I teach can possibly compete with the fast-paced razzle-dazzle of this ever-evolving entertainment form and worrying about the young guys who spend so much time divorced from reality and the life of the mind as they zap away the hours before their video screens. I had to chuckle at the image of otherwise reasonable boys keeping a vigil outside the Best Buy store in Potomac Yards until the doors opened at midnight on Nov. 9, when they could charge in to be the first to snap up Halo 2, which added $125 million to Bill Gates's company fortune on its debut day alone. But I didn't think it was so funny when some guys skipped school that day to stay home and try to beat the game. Senior Steve Penn (who wasn't one of the skippers) told me that the following weekend, he played for six hours straight (minus bathroom breaks) at a friend's house. When he got home at 1 a.m. on Sunday, he went at it for two more hours, fell asleep, got up at 7 and fired up the game again. "My mother had to remind me to change my clothes and take a shower," he said. Steve, like Jake, is a good student; he even finished "All the Pretty Horses" (which he said he appreciated because it "wasn't sappy") a week before it was due. I'm not especially worried about the boys who manage to balance their passion for video games with their responsibilities to school and to themselves. But I have to wonder what effect this widespread, intense obsession with the games is bound to have on the boys who can't, or don't, manage that balance, the boys whose time and concentration the games suck away. And suck them away they do. I'm not the only one to see it happening. T.C. girls have told me that at parties they are often totally ignored as the guys gather around TV screens, entranced by one video game or another. "Girls sit around watching the guys play until they get fed up and drive off looking for something else to do," says junior Sarah Kell, for whom the games range from "stupid and boring" to "disgusting." (Most girls tell me they find the games silly.) "We try to tell them they're wasting their time, but they just keep going. Some guys stay up playing until 3 in the morning on school nights, and then they try to do their homework." I figured I would finally discover what all the excitement was about when I went to a Halo 2 party at a friend's Internet company recently. But as I wandered among the four offices where teams of three to four guys -- bright, highly educated guys in their mid-twenties and early thirties -- were competing, I kept asking myself: "Is this all there is to it?" I'm not sure what I was expecting, but certainly it was something more than a game where you shoot at moving objects until you get 50 "kills." I know that Halo 2 aficionados will say that's a gross oversimplification. And as one who gave up video games after several failed attempts at Pac-Man in the early '70s, I may be the last person who should be commenting on them. Like many others, though, I find the rampant violence, misogyny and sexual and racial stereotyping of some games beyond offensive, and wonder about the negative messages they're sending to young people. But my more immediate concern is how to get books back on the playing field. I became an English teacher because I love literature and wanted to share it with students. Literature, however, demands that we enter into an imaginative world slowly, through the written word. It forces us to re-create this world in our minds, through the power of our imaginations. When my students finish "All the Pretty Horses," I'll show them some scenes from the 2000 movie. I know that the students who really got into the reading will say, as kids in previous years have said, that the world the movie creates -- even enhanced by the star power of Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz -- can in no way compare to the richness of the world the book allows them to evoke for themselves. But I also know that many of the boys won't care one way or the other. They won't have engaged with the novel on the level that really makes an imagined story come alive. Entering the fictional world of a novel takes a different set of skills from getting to the "next level" in a video game -- as I found out during my pathetic attempt to steal a car when I played Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas last week. As much as I love "All The Pretty Horses," I admit it can't compel the focus or generate the kind of excitement that guys find in Halo 2, Madden '05, Grand Theft Auto or any of the other new generation of games. Whatever vicarious experience a novel or even a movie can offer, "gamers" say it can't approach a video game's intensity of experience. "A video game is like a novel -- it has a plot, a setting and a theme. But it's the interaction that a novel doesn't have that makes the video games so intriguing," said Steve Penn, in a patient effort to enlighten me. "With a video game you're seeing the action happen in front of you; you have some control, which creates an illusion that you're in the game." Jake Stephens feels the same way. "It's like reading an exciting book, except you feel you are in the book," he says. "Once I start a game like San Andreas, I am so into it that I sit in class thinking about how I can get to the next level when I get home." I have to confess that when I was in high school, reading novels wasn't too high on my list of priorities, either. So maybe, you say, I shouldn't worry about my students. They'll come around to literature later. But the video craze apparently isn't something that wears off with adolescence. In fact, it seems to intensify in college. Old Dominion University freshman Nick Pratt said that as soon as Halo 2 came out, some guys skipped classes for three straight days to play the game in the dorms. Duke freshman Sarah Ball told me she can walk down the hall of a male-only floor in her dorm and hear video games going in every room. "Lately they've been having Halo 2 tournaments," she reports. "There will be wall-to-wall bodies in a room, the lights are off for that video game ambience. I stuck my head in once to ask a friend a question and got death stares." Video games have taken over the lives of some guys in her dorm, says University of Virginia freshman Remy Kauffmann. "I've never seen anything like it. It's hard to have a conversation with these guys. If they're not playing, they want to start up a game." "One of the reasons so many kids bomb out of college in their first year," says Silver Spring educational psychologist Bill Stixrud, "is that without parents to set some boundaries, they can't control the video games and other electronic entertainment available to them." How often do you think that happens with a good novel? T.C. Williams senior L.J. Harbin has played his share of video games, especially the ones involving cars, like Gran Turismo. He agrees that the games take time away both from studies and from the development of physical abilities. "There are more and more couch potatoes -- guys who are 30 to 40 years old and organize tournaments. Some work just to pay for their addiction," L.J. says. "I know two guys who are Halo fanatics and both chose the game over their girlfriends. They would rather be sitting on their butts pushing buttons than doing something with their girlfriends." T.C. Williams football coach Greg Sullivan says that he sees fewer and fewer kids playing outside when he drives around Northern Virginia. "They are inside playing video games," he says. "More kids are finding real sports too demanding." I know we all need entertainment and downtime, and I've certainly thrown away a few hours in my life myself. I would love to have back all the time I've wasted watching professional football games. And I take a little solace from the predictions of cyberspace gurus at places like MIT, who say that video games are creating a new art form -- the interactive narrative -- as revolutionary as the printing press or the invention of movies. Interactive narratives will put us right in the story and allow us, at the push of a button, to choose from many plot lines, they promise. But while we're waiting for the next Orson Welles or Francis Ford Coppola to come out of Silicon Valley or MIT, I see a whole generation of boys being manipulated by mercenary video game designers who aren't terribly interested in creating high art. I worry that video games are contributing to the growing gap I see in the academic achievement of boys and girls and to the disproportionate number of boys being labeled LD and being put on Ritalin. A recent Japanese study compared the brain activity of children adding single-digit numbers to that of children playing Nintendo games. It found that the Nintendo games stimulated only the temporal lobes, which regulate basic sensory activity, while doing the simple math problems stimulated not only the temporal but also the frontal lobe, which governs impulse control, goal-directed behavior and memory. "Young brains grow on a 'use it or lose it' principle," says Stixrud, who fears that video games may be stunting the brain development of young children. He sees kids in his practice who have developed sleep disorders because they spend three or four hours a night playing electronic games. Tomorrow, I will give my first-period class a test on the final section of "All the Pretty Horses." There are some great boys in that class, and I hope they've been able to take the time and find the solitude to give themselves a chance to get into the novel. If they don't like it after a solid effort, so be it. I won't argue over questions of taste. But I will be royally bothered if they've been cheated out of a chance to experience the beauty and power of the book because a marathon of video game-playing dissipated their time and blunted their sensibilities. Author's e-mail: May6dog@aol.com Pat Welsh has taught English at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria for more than 30 years.

The Trouble With Boys http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10965522/ They're kinetic, maddening and failing at school. Now educators are trying new ways to help them succeed. By Peg Tyre, Newsweek Jan. 30, 2006 issue - Spend a few minutes on the phone with Danny Frankhuizen and you come away thinking, "What a nice boy." He's thoughtful, articulate, bright. He has a good relationship with his mom, goes to church every Sunday, loves the rock band Phish and spends hours each day practicing his guitar. But once he's inside his large public Salt Lake City high school, everything seems to go wrong. He's 16, but he can't stay organized. He finishes his homework and then can't find it in his backpack. He loses focus in class, and his teachers, with 40 kids to wrangle, aren't much help. "If I miss a concept, they tell me, 'Figure it out yourself'," says Danny. Last year Danny's grades dropped from B's to D's and F's. The sophomore, who once dreamed of Stanford, is pulling his grades up but worries that "I won't even get accepted at community college." His mother, Susie Malcom, a math teacher who is divorced, says it's been wrenching to watch Danny stumble. "I tell myself he's going to make something good out of himself," she says. "But it's hard to see doors close and opportunities fall away." What's wrong with Danny? By almost every benchmark, boys across the nation and in every demographic group are falling behind. In elementary school, boys are two times more likely than girls to be diagnosed with learning disabilities and twice as likely to be placed in special-education classes. High-school boys are losing ground to girls on standardized writing tests. The number of boys who said they didn't like school rose 71 percent between 1980 and 2001, according to a University of Michigan study. Nowhere is the shift more evident than on college campuses. Thirty years ago men represented 58 percent of the undergraduate student body. Now they're a minority at 44 percent. This widening achievement gap, says Margaret Spellings, U.S. secretary of Education, "has profound implications for the economy, society, families and democracy." With millions of parents wringing their hands, educators are searching for new tools to help tackle the problem of boys. Books including Michael Thompson's best seller "Raising Cain" (recently made into a PBS documentary) and Harvard psychologist William Pollack's definitive work "Real Boys" have become must-reads in the teachers' lounge. The Gurian Institute, founded in 1997 by family therapist Michael Gurian to help the people on the front lines help boys, has enrolled 15,000 teachers in its seminars. Even the Gates Foundation, which in the last five years has given away nearly a billion dollars to innovative high schools, is making boys a big priority. "Helping underperforming boys," says Jim Shelton, the foundation's education director, "has become part of our core mission." The problem won't be solved overnight. In the last two decades, the education system has become obsessed with a quantifiable and narrowly defined kind of academic success, these experts say, and that myopic view is harming boys. Boys are biologically, developmentally and psychologically different from girlsand teachers need to learn how to bring out the best in every one. "Very well-meaning people," says Dr. Bruce Perry, a Houston neurologist who advocates for troubled kids, "have created a biologically disrespectful model of education." Thirty years ago it was girls, not boys, who were lagging. The 1972 federal law Title IX forced schools to provide equal opportunities for girls in the classroom and on the playing field. Over the next two decades, billions of dollars were funneled into finding new ways to help girls achieve. In 1992, the American Association of University Women issued a report claiming that the work of Title IX was not donegirls still fell behind in math and science; by the mid-1990s, girls had reduced the gap in math and more girls than boys were taking high-school-level biology and chemistry. Some scholars, notably Christina Hoff Sommers, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, charge that misguided feminism is what's been hurting boys. In the 1990s, she says, girls were making strong, steady progress toward parity in schools, but feminist educators portrayed them as disadvantaged and lavished them with support and attention. Boys, meanwhile, whose rates of achievement had begun to falter, were ignored and their problems allowed to fester (click here for related essay). Boys have always been boys, but the expectations for how they're supposed to act and learn in school have changed. In the last 10 years, thanks in part to activist parents concerned about their children's success, school performance has been measured in two simple ways: how many students are enrolled in accelerated courses and whether test scores stay high. Standardized assessments have become commonplace for kids as young as 6. Curricula have become more rigid. Instead of allowing teachers to instruct kids in the manner and pace that suit each class, some states now tell teachers what, when and how to teach. At the same time, student-teacher ratios have risen, physical education and sports programs have been cut and recess is a distant memory. These new pressures are undermining the strengths and underscoring the limitations of what psychologists call the "boy brain"the kinetic, disorganized, maddening and sometimes brilliant behaviors that scientists now believe are not learned but hard-wired. When Cris Messler of Mountainside, N.J., brought her 3-year-old son Sam to a pediatrician to get him checked for ADHD, she was acknowledging the desperation parents can feel. He's a high-energy kid, and Messler found herself hoping for a positive diagnosis. "If I could get a diagnosis from the doctor, I could get him on medicine," she says. The doctor said Sam is a normal boy. School has been tough, though. Sam's reading teacher said he was hopeless. His first-grade teacher complains he's antsy, and Sam, now 7, has been referring to himself as "stupid." Messler's glad her son doesn't need medication, but what, she wonders, can she do now to help her boy in school? For many boys, the trouble starts as young as 5, when they bring to kindergarten a set of physical and mental abilities very different from girls'. As almost any parent knows, most 5-year-old girls are more fluent than boys and can sight-read more words. Boys tend to have better hand-eye coordination, but their fine motor skills are less developed, making it a struggle for some to control a pencil or a paintbrush. Boys are more impulsive than girls; even if they can sit still, many prefer not toat least not for long. Thirty years ago feminists argued that classic "boy" behaviors were a result of socialization, but these days scientists believe they are an expression of male brain chemistry. Sometime in the first trimester, a boy fetus begins producing male sex hormones that bathe his brain in testosterone for the rest of his gestation. "That exposure wires the male brain differently," says Arthur Arnold, professor of physiological science at UCLA. How? Scientists aren't exactly sure. New studies show that prenatal exposure to male sex hormones directly affects the way children play. Girls whose mothers have high levels of testosterone during pregnancy are more likely to prefer playing with trucks to playing with dolls. There are also clues that hormones influence the way we learn all through life. In a Dutch study published in 1994, doctors found that when males were given female hormones, their spatial skills dropped but their verbal skills improved. In elementary-school classroomswhere teachers increasingly put an emphasis on language and a premium on sitting quietly and speaking in turnthe mismatch between boys and school can become painfully obvious. "Girl behavior becomes the gold standard," says "Raising Cain" coauthor Thompson. "Boys are treated like defective girls." Two years ago Kelley King, principal of Douglass Elementary School in Boulder, Colo., looked at the gap between boys and girls and decided to take action. Boys were lagging 10 points behind girls in reading and 14 points in writing. Many more boys than girls were being labeled as learning disabled, too. So King asked her teachers to buy copies of Gurian's book "The Minds of Boys," on boy-friendly classrooms, and in the fall of 2004 she launched a bold experiment. Whenever possible, teachers replaced lecture time with fast-moving lessons that all kids could enjoy. Three weeks ago, instead of discussing the book "The View From Saturday," teacher Pam Unrau divided her third graders into small groups, and one student in each group pretended to be a character from the book. Classes are noisier, Unrau says, but the boys are closing the gap. Last spring, Douglass girls scored an average of 106 on state writing tests, while boys got a respectable 101. Primatologists have long observed that juvenile male chimps battle each other not just for food and females, but to establish and maintain their place in the hierarchy of the tribe. Primates face off against each other rather than appear weak. That same evolutionary imperative, psychologists say, can make it hard for boys to thrive in middle schooland difficult for boys who are failing to accept the help they need. The transition to middle school is rarely easy, but like the juvenile primates they are, middle-school boys will do almost anything to avoid admitting that they're overwhelmed. "Boys measure everything they do or say by a single yardstick: does this make me look weak?" says Thompson. "And if it does, he isn't going to do it." That's part of the reason that videogames have such a powerful hold on boys: the action is constant, they can calibrate just how hard the challenges will be and, when they lose, the defeat is private. When Brian Johns hit seventh grade, he never admitted how vulnerable it made him feel. "I got behind and never caught up," says Brian, now 17 and a senior at Grand River Academy, an Ohio boarding school. When his parents tried to help, he rebuffed them. When his mother, Anita, tried to help him organize his assignment book, he grew evasive about when his homework was due. Anita didn't know where to turn. Brian's school had a program for gifted kids, and support for ones with special needs. But what, Anita asked his teachers, do they do about kids like her son who are in the middle and struggling? Those kids, one of Brian's teachers told Anita, "are the ones who fall through the cracks." It's easy for middle-school boys to feel outgunned. Girls reach sexual maturity two years ahead of boys, but other, less visible differences put boys at a disadvantage, too. The prefrontal cortex is a knobby region of the brain directly behind the forehead that scientists believe helps humans organize complex thoughts, control their impulses and understand the consequences of their own behavior. In the last five years, Dr. Jay Giedd, an expert in brain development at the National Institutes of Health, has used brain scans to show that in girls, it reaches its maximum thickness by the age of 11 and, for the next decade or more, continues to mature. In boys, this process is delayed by 18 months. Middle-school boys may use their brains less efficiently, too. Using a type of MRI that traces activity in the brain, Deborah Yurgelun-Todd, director of the cognitive neuroimaging laboratory at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., tested the activity patterns in the prefrontal cortex of children between the ages of 11 and 18. When shown pictures of fearful faces, adolescent girls registered activity on the right side of the prefrontal cortex, similar to an adult. Adolescent boys used both sidesa less mature pattern of brain activity. Teenage girls can process information faster, too. In a study about to be published in the journal Intelligence, researchers at Vanderbilt University administered timed testspicking similar objects and matching groups of numbersto 8,000 boys and girls between the ages of 5 and 18. In kindergarten, boys and girls processed information at about the same speeds. In early adolescence, girls finished faster and got more right. By 18, boys and girls were processing with the same speed and accuracy. Scientists caution that brain research doesn't tell the whole story: temperament, family background and environment play big roles, too. Some boys are every bit as organized and assertive as the highest-achieving girls. All kids can be scarred by violence, alcohol or drugs in the family. But if your brain hasn't reached maturity yet, says Yurgelun-Todd, "it's not going to be able to do its job optimally." Across the nation, educators are reviving an old idea: separate the girls from the boysand at Roncalli Middle School, in Pueblo, Colo., administrators say, it's helping kids of both genders. This past fall, with the blessing of parents, school guidance counselor Mike Horton assigned a random group of 50 sixth graders to single-sex classes in core subjects. These days, when sixth-grade science teacher Pat Farrell assigns an earth-science lab on measuring crystals, the girls collect their materialsa Bunsen burner, a beaker of phenyl salicylate and a spoon. Then they read the directions and follow the sequence from beginning to end. The first things boys do is ask, "Can we eat this?" They're less organized, Farrell notes, but sometimes, "they're willing to go beyond what the lab asks them to do." With this in mind, he hands out written instructions to both classes but now goes over them step by step for the boys. Although it's too soon to declare victory, there are some positive signs: the shyest boys are participating more. This fall, the all-girl class did best in math, English and science, followed by the all-boy class and then coed classes. One of the most reliable predictors of whether a boy will succeed or fail in high school rests on a single question: does he have a man in his life to look up to? Too often, the answer is no. High rates of divorce and single motherhood have created a generation of fatherless boys. In every kind of neighborhood, rich or poor, an increasing number of boysnow a startling 40 percentare being raised without their biological dads. Psychologists say that grandfathers and uncles can help, but emphasize that an adolescent boy without a father figure is like an explorer without a map. And that is especially true for poor boys and boys who are struggling in school. Older males, says Gurian, model self-restraint and solid work habits for younger ones. And whether they're breathing down their necks about grades or admonishing them to show up for school on time, "an older man reminds a boy in a million different ways that school is crucial to their mission in life." In the past, boys had many opportunities to learn from older men. They might have been paired with a tutor, apprenticed to a master or put to work in the family store. High schools offered boys a rich array of roles in which to exercise leadership skillsclass officer, yearbook editor or a place on the debate team. These days, with the exception of sports, more girls than boys are involved in those activities. In neighborhoods where fathers are most scarce, the high-school dropout rates are shocking: more than half of African-American boys who start high school don't finish. David Banks, principal of the Eagle Academy for Young Men, one of four all-boy public high schools in the New York City system, wants each of his 180 students not only to graduate from high school but to enroll in college. And he's leaving nothing to chance. Almost every Eagle Academy boy has a male mentora lawyer, a police officer or an entrepreneur from the school's South Bronx neighborhood. The impact of the mentoring program, says Banks, has been "beyond profound." Tenth grader Rafael Mendez is unequivocal: his mentor "is the best thing that ever happened to me." Before Rafael came to Eagle Academy, he dreamed about playing pro baseball, but his mentor, Bronx Assistant District Attorney Rafael Curbelo, has shown him another way to succeed: Mendez is thinking about attending college in order to study forensic science. Colleges would welcome more applications from young men like Rafael Mendez. At many state universities the gender balance is already tilting 60-40 toward women. Primary and secondary schools are going to have to make some major changes, says Ange Peterson, president-elect of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, to restore the gender balance. "There's a whole group of men we're losing in education completely," says Peterson. For Nikolas Arnold, 15, a sophomore at a public high school in Santa Monica, Calif., college is a distant dream. Nikolas is smart: he's got an encyclopedic knowledge of weaponry and war. When he was in first grade, his principal told his mother he was too immature and needed ADHD drugs. His mother balked. "Too immature?" says Diane Arnold, a widow. "He was six and a half!" He's always been an advanced reader, but his grades are erratic. Last semester, when his English teacher assigned two girls' favorites"Memoirs of a Geisha" and "The Secret Life of Bees" Nikolas got a D. But lately, he has a math teacher he likes and is getting excited about numbers. He's reserved in class sometimes. But now that he's more engaged, his grades are improving slightly and his mother, who's pushing college, is hopeful he will begin to hit his stride. Girls get A's and B's on their report cards, she tells him, but that doesn't mean boys can't do it, too. With Andrew Murr, Vanessa Juarez, Anne Underwood, Karen Springen and Pat Wingert

Boy Trouble http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060123&s=whitmire012306 by Richard Whitmire, The New Republic Online It's been a year since Harvard President Larry Summers uttered some unfortunate speculations about why so few women hold elite professorships in the sciences. During Summers's speech, a biologist, overwhelmed by the injustice of it all, nearly collapsed with what George F. Will unkindly described as the vapors. Since that odd January day, Summers has been rebuked with a faculty no-confidence vote, untold talk-show hosts have weighed in, and 936 stories about the controversy have appeared in newspapers and magazines (according to LexisNexis). Impressive response, especially considering the modest number of these professorships available. Compare that with what happened after the U.S. Department of Education, also about a year ago, released a 100-plus-page report weighing academic progress by gender. The results were bracing. Nearly every chart told the same story. Boys are over 50 percent more likely than girls to repeat grades in elementary school, one-third more likely to drop out of high school, and twice as likely to be identified with a learning disability. The response? Near-total silence. What's most worrisome are not long-standing gender differences but recent plunges in boys' relative performance. Between 1992 and 2002, the gap by which high school girls outperformed boys on tests in both reading and writing--especially writing--widened significantly. Given the reading and writing demands of today's college curriculum, that means a lot of boys out there are falling well short of being considered "college material." Which is why women now significantly outnumber men on college campuses, a phenomenon familiar enough to any sorority sister seeking a date to the next formal. This June, nearly six out of ten bachelor's degrees awarded will go to women. If the Department of Education's report is any indication, in coming years, this gender gap will grow even larger. The report illustrates a dramatic and unsolved mystery: At some point in the early '80s, boys' relative academic records and aspirations took a downward turn. So far, no one has come up with a good explanation for this trend, but it's a story that affects millions of boys and their families. And yet, according to LexisNexis, the report was cited by name in only five newspaper and magazine articles. Not only has there been little media attention to this crisis in boys' education, but there has been surprisingly little research. And the conventional wisdom offered up to explain the problem--boys play too many video games and listen to too much hip-hop music--can't explain a gender slide that's affecting not just the United States but much of the developed West. It also can't explain why boys in a few schools manage to duck the gender gap. But promising new answers have begun to surface--and from some very unlikely places. What we know for certain about this mostly ignored gender trend comes from surveys that measure the academic attitudes of teen students. In the early '80s, boys and girls were almost evenly matched in their college ambitions. A decade later, everything had changed. Academic aspirations for girls soared as those of boys pretty much flatlined. And the trend has continued, with girls who say they plan to go to college or graduate school now far outnumbering boys. Among female high school seniors, 62.4 percent said they definitely planned to graduate from a four-year college program, compared with 51.1 percent of male high school seniors, according to a 2001 survey by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. A few things about this mystery are known. The gender gap between boys' and girls' academic achievement has long existed in the black community. Nearly twice as many black women as black men attend college, according to the latest numbers from the Department of Education. But, in recent years, the slippage broadened to the white middle class. American Council on Education researcher Jacqueline King has produced data showing startling shifts among middle-class white college students. Only eight years ago, the campus gender balance for this group (incomes $30,000 to $70,000) was an even 50-50. As of last year, the proportion of white men had dropped to 43 percent. In middle-class suburbs, it's common to hear parents wondering out loud why their daughters go to the colleges of their choice while their sons struggle to get into second-tier schools. What's happening in those homes is itself something of a puzzle. Patrick Welsh, an English teacher at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., offered the outside world a glimpse in a piece he wrote for The Washington Post in 2003. Welsh described his bafflement over privileged white boys who felt obligated to party too much and study too little. Their most obvious role models for how seriously to take life appeared to be popular rap artists. But, as Welsh pointed out, even these underperforming boys nearly always landed a spot in some college. That's due to one of the best-kept secrets in college admissions today: the affirmative action campaign to recruit men. Most admissions directors sifting through stacks of applications from men and women can only sigh at the contrast. The average male applicant has far lower grades, writes a sloppy essay, and sports few impressive extracurriculars. Those admissions directors face a choice: Either admit less-qualified men or see the campus gender balance slip below 40 percent male, a point at which female applicants begin to look elsewhere. What little research has been done on this shift in the gender gap falls roughly into two camps--the feminists and the pragmatists. The feminist viewpoint is summarized in "Raising and Educating Healthy Boys: A Report on the Growing Crisis in Boys' Education." This study, performed by the Educational Equity Center at the Academy for Educational Development and published last March, effectively asks: Why can't boys be more like girls? Boys are locked into a masculinity box, the feminist researchers say. Most boys stay inside that box, living by a macho boy code that precludes developing the "language of feelings" needed to express themselves or relate to teachers. Boys who break out of this box are doomed to a life of teasing and being bullied. In other words, young boys never get sufficiently acquainted with their feelings to write A-rated essays. Expecting boys to become more like girls, however, will strike parents of boys as a bit odd--especially liberal parents who swore they'd never give their children violent toys, only to watch their sons mold clumps of clay into submachine guns. The pragmatists, mostly male researchers, peer inside the school door and see a feminized world that needs tweaking. Professor Jeffrey Wilhelm, co-author of Reading Don't Fix No Chevys, decries the dearth of boy-friendly reading material. Most literature classes demand that students explore their emotions (not a strong point for boys). Other pragmatists point to the simple things: Basing grades on turning in homework on time guarantees lower grades for boys. Studies consistently show boys have more trouble than girls turning in homework on time. Some educators and parents explain this by saying that many boys simply forget or decline to turn in completed homework. Here's the boy-thinking: If I answered the homework question to my satisfaction, the task is done. Why turn it in? If you're the parent of a girl, that may sound bizarre. It isn't. Parents of slumping boys know differently. The problem with these theories is that they can't explain the rare cases in which schools have managed to keep boys' learning on par with that of girls. The Education Trust, a Washington-based education reform group that looks after the education interests of less privileged students, scoured the nation for gender success stories and turned up Indian River School District in rural Delaware. Indian River's Frankford Elementary appears to be an unlikely candidate for achieving any sort of academic success, let alone overcoming the gap between boys' and girls' achievement: 76 percent of the students qualify for subsidized lunches, 22 percent land in special education, and 64 percent are either Latino or black. Most of the Latinos are sons and daughters of Mexican agricultural workers who have limited English skills. And, yet, here's Frankford's 2004 state report card for fifth-graders: 100 percent of boys and 95 percent of girls meet state reading standards. When I contacted them, school leaders expressed pride at their success in educating poor and minority students but appeared bewildered when told they had conquered the gender gap. Turns out their education strategy had nothing to do with getting boys in touch with their feelings or eliminating late-homework penalties. Rather, the strategy was a roll-up-your-sleeves effort initially sparked by a state campaign to improve literacy skills. Students whose problems were identified early received extra help from teachers. A special eye was kept on black boys. Most important, no excuses were accepted--when boys fell behind, teachers weren't allowed to consider that the norm. While the national research into this issue is dismal, a handful of individual researchers have turned up some important discoveries. The culprit they identify has little to do with the influence of anti-academic hip-hop music, too many video games, or the sometimes exasperating tendency of boys to be boys. The key appears to be literacy skills. Ken Hilton is an unlikely pioneer in gender-gap research. Hilton is a statistician who works out of a small cinderblock office in the administration building of the Rush-Henrietta schools in the suburbs of Rochester, New York. Six years ago, then-school board member Dirk Hightower showed up to see his son inducted into the National Honor Society. What he saw was a long line of girls moving across the stage: "I heard nothing but heels clicking," Hightower recalls. Concerned about the obvious gender gap, Hightower asked Hilton what was going on. Hilton couldn't answer Hightower's question, but vowed to get to the bottom of it. Hilton is a pocket-protector kind of guy who arrives at his half-basement office every Sunday to catch up on work. When he promises results, he delivers. Now, six years later, Hilton has some of the best research into the gender gap available anywhere. (Though it hasn't been published or peer-reviewed.) And he seems barely aware of this. I'm the first national reporter even to inquire. Hilton conducted a series of studies, culminating in the summer of 2004 with a large survey of 21 school districts across New York state. Twelve were blue-collar and middle-class districts just like Rush-Henrietta. Another nine were among the wealthiest school districts in the state. Here is what Hilton found: In the first group, the blue-collar and middle-class schools, girls not only excelled in verbal skills but each year put a little more academic distance between themselves and the boys. Even in math, long thought to be a male stronghold, girls did better. But the real leap for girls was in reading. Another significant find: In these districts, the big hit boys take in reading happens in middle school, as they hit puberty. That's when a modest gap in verbal skills evident in elementary school doubles in size. As for the wealthy schools, more on them later. Combine Hilton's local research with national neuroscience research, and you arrive at this: The brains of men and women are very different. Last spring, Scientific American summed up the best gender and brain research, including a study demonstrating that women have greater neuron density in the temporal lobe cortex, the region of the brain associated with verbal skills. Now we've reached the heart of the mystery. Girls have genetic advantages that make them better readers, especially early in life. And, now, society is favoring verbal skills. Even in math, the emphasis has shifted away from guy-friendly problems involving quick calculations to word and logic problems. Increasingly, teachers ask students to keep written journals, even as early as kindergarten. What gets written isn't polished prose, but it is important training, say teachers, some of whom rely on the book Kid Writing, which advocates the use of writing to teach children basic skills in a host of subjects. The teachers are only doing their jobs, preparing their students for a work world that has moved rapidly away from manufacturing and agriculture and into information-based work. It's not that schools have changed their ways to favor girls; it's that they haven't changed their ways to help boys adjust to this new world. Suddenly, the anecdotal evidence becomes obvious. Open the door of any ninth-grade "academy" that some school districts run--the clump of students predicted to sink in high school--and you'll see a potential football team. Nearly all guys. Ninth grade is where boys' verbal deficit becomes an albatross that stymies further male academic achievement. That's the year guys run into the fruits of the school-reform movement that date back to the 1989 governors' summit in Charlottesville, Virginia, where Democrats and Republicans vowed to shake up schools. One outcome of the summit is that, starting in ninth grade, every student now gets a verbally drenched curriculum that is supposed to better prepare them for college. Good goal, but it's leaving boys in the dust. The findings of the other researchers all play roles here. The feminists are right to finger macho, anti-reading attitudes of boys, especially in blue-collar districts. Patrick Welsh isn't wrong to cite the influence of hip-hop music. It's just that these are lesser players within a larger landscape. Those who continue to argue that toxic American culture is to blame may be unaware that this is a phenomenon that afflicts many post-industrial Western countries. A 2002 study by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development found low academic performance to be more of a problem among boys than girls in 19 of 27 countries. Special problems were found in Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. In 21 of the 27 countries, the number of women graduating from university exceeded the number of men. But why are some boys faring better than others and a few schools managing to level the gender playing field? Hilton's research on the wealthiest schools is revealing. Girls still do better in verbal skills in those districts. But Hilton discovered an important distinction. When the wealthy boys enter middle school, they don't lose ground. And that holds steady through high school. Why the smaller verbal gender gaps in upper-income families? Hilton can only feel his way on this one, in part by drawing lessons from his own family, which teems with educators. At nights and on weekends, Hilton saw his father reading, just as the boys hitting puberty in the wealthiest districts see their well-educated fathers reading. If your father reads, it's not viewed as a sissy thing, as it's seen by many blue-collar students. Not only would that explain why the verbal gap doesn't widen for boys in the wealthiest districts, but it would also explain why the Harvards and Princetons and Stanfords have no trouble drawing talented men. Those schools run close to a 50-50 gender balance among undergraduates. Reversing the academic underachievement among most boys may require an old-fashioned assault on poor reading skills. Frankford Elementary managed that, but even Indian River boys begin to lose ground in middle school, the black hole of U.S. education. Maybe Maryland has a partial answer. The state has been breaking out its test-score data by gender since 1992, which is why Maryland Superintendent of Schools Nancy Grasmick is dismayed by the gender gaps she sees--72 percent of girls read at a proficient or advanced level by eighth grade, compared with 61 percent of boys. Here's part of the Grasmick plan: Take existing comic books and graphic novels deemed to cover academic disciplines and sprinkle them around classrooms. Let the boys believe they're pulling a fast one on the teachers by grabbing a quick read. Sounds bizarre, but it's based on good hunches: Boys who become successful readers in high school often attribute that success to making a transition from comic books to school books in late elementary school. Why not offer curriculum-as-comic books? It just might work. It also might not. But at least Maryland is trying, which is better than most states. Another solution lies with teachers' colleges, which, to date, have been part of the problem. Michael Gurian, author of Boys and Girls Learn Differently!, says his survey of education classes reveals that 99 percent fail to offer courses on biological learning differences. There is decent research on this, but it is rarely passed along to teachers. Any solution to the problem must begin by acknowledging that it exists. And, unfortunately, the crisis in boys' education is woefully underexposed. Partly, that is understandable. Reporters look around their world and see men dominant in academics, business, and politics. What's to worry about? Plenty, as it turns out. Nearly all those male leaders now at the top of their field earned at least a bachelor's degree. And, in today's information world, a bachelor's degree is just a starting point. But, each year, fewer and fewer men make it to that starting line. That's a problem that merits attention--at least more than five articles. Richard Whitmire, a USA Today editorial writer, researched this issue while a fellow with the Journalism Fellowships in Child and Family Policy at the University of Maryland.

Boy Scouts' debt triggers parents, leaders curiosity http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060124/NEWS01/601240352/ http://tinyurl.com/8cpgu Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 01/24/06 BY JAMES A. QUIRK, FREEHOLD BUREAU With the recent revelation that the Monmouth Council Boy Scouts will begin charging Scouts an annual $52 fee to offset more than $1 million in debt, many parents are asking the same question: How did it come to this? Leaders said they want to know how the Monmouth Council could be in such debt when only two years ago, they sold their former headquarters in Ocean Township for $1.4 million, according to Brian Foley, a local Realtor and former Boy Scout. "They sold that property way too early," Foley said. "That property is worth $2 million now." "This was prime real estate on the corner of Deal Road and Monmouth Road," said George V. DeCastro, adult committee chairman of Troop 71, in Oakhurst, in an e-mail to the Asbury Park Press. "They sold it about two years ago claiming that they did not need to be on such valuable real estate. . . . Could they have built a building on the Quail Hill Scout reservation, which they own, and thereby saved some money?" In a letter sent to local scoutmasters and troop leaders last week, Monmouth Council officials stated that in the past four years, the organization has gone from having a balanced budget to being more than $1 million in debt, with at least $252,000 considered past due. To pay the bills, the Executive Board of the Monmouth Council recently approved the pursuit of a $1.1 million mortgage. To get it, the organization has to show "a guaranteed source of income to repay the loan," which is why the council will begin to charge Scouts an annual fee of $52. "There was no inkling of this with any of us," said Ellen Anfuso, committee chair of Cub Scout Pack 145, in West Long Branch. In a meeting before Scout leaders Jan. 18, Bob Smith, Boy Scouts Area 2 President, said the Monmouth Council moved from the Ocean site to its current facility on Ginesi Drive, in Marlboro, because they had outgrown the old building. Smith said the organization is now going to operate as if it "has its foot on the brake," meaning no new positions or programs will be created. "What is being done to eliminate future debt, (like) reducing the number of paid professionals, cutting back on salaries and benefits, cutting back on office time where utilities are being used, eliminating perks free coffee for staff members, etc. or selling off part of Forestburg and/or Quail Hill?" asked Charlie Steiniger, from Troop 142 in Belford. Forestburg is a sleep-away camp in New York owned by the Monmouth Council. Meanwhile, the Monmouth Council of Girl Scouts Inc., is making it clear they are a completely separate entity. "Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts are separate organizations, both at the local and national levels," said Michelle Mayor Aguilar, marketing coordinator for the Monmouth Council of Girl Scouts, in an e-mail to the Press. "The recent news of the Monmouth Council Boy Scouts of America being in debt is unfortunate. Rest assured the Monmouth Council of Girl Scouts is financially secure." "They sold it about two years ago claiming that they did not need to be on such valuable real estate. . . . Could they have built a building on the Quail Hill Scout reservation, which they own, and thereby saved some money?" In a letter sent to local scoutmasters and troop leaders last week, Monmouth Council officials stated that in the past four years, the organization has gone from having a balanced budget to being more than $1 million in debt, with at least $252,000 considered past due. To pay the bills, the executive board of the Monmouth Council recently approved the pursuit of a $1.1 million mortgage. To get it, the organization has to show "a guaranteed source of income to repay the loan," which is why the council will begin to charge Scouts an annual fee of $52. "There was no inkling of this with any of us," said Ellen Anfuso, committee chair of Cub Scout Pack 145, in West Long Branch. In a meeting before Scout leaders Jan. 18, Bob Smith, Boy Scouts Area 2 president, said the Monmouth Council moved from the Ocean site to its current facility on Ginesi Drive, in Marlboro, because they had outgrown the old building. Smith said the organization is now going to operate as if it "has its foot on the brake," meaning no new positions or programs will be created. "What is being done to eliminate future debt, (like) reducing the number of paid professionals, cutting back on salaries and benefits, cutting back on office time where utilities are being used, eliminating perks free coffee for staff members, etc. or selling off part of Forestburg and/or Quail Hill?" asked Charlie Steiniger, from Troop 142 in Belford. Forestburg is a sleep-away camp in New York state owned by the Monmouth Council. Meanwhile, the Monmouth Council of Girl Scouts Inc., is making it clear they are a completely separate entity. "Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts are separate organizations, both at the local and national levels," said Michelle Mayor Aguilar, marketing coordinator for the Monmouth Council of Girl Scouts, in an e-mail to the Press. "The recent news of the Monmouth Council Boy Scouts of America being in debt is unfortunate. Rest assured the Monmouth Council of Girl Scouts is financially secure."

BOY SCOUTS MOVEMENT BEGINS: January 24, 1908 http://www.historychannel.com/cgi-bin/today_relocate.cgi?p=%2Fcgi-bin%2Ftoday_relocate.cgi&month=01&day=24&section=thisday&x=35&y=7 http://tinyurl.com/b83lg On January 24, 1908, the Boy Scouts movement begins in England with the publication of the first installment of Robert Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys. The name Baden-Powell was already well known to many English boys, and thousands of them eagerly bought up the handbook. By the end of April, the serialization of Scouting for Boys was completed, and scores of impromptu Boy Scout troops had sprung up across Britain. In 1900, Baden-Powell became a national hero in Britain for his 217-day defense of Mafeking in the South African War. Soon after, Aids to Scouting, a military field manual he had written for British soldiers in 1899, caught on with a younger audience. Boys loved the lessons on tracking and observation and organized elaborate games using the book. Hearing this, Baden-Powell decided to write a nonmilitary field manual for adolescents that would also emphasize the importance of morality and good deeds. First, however, he decided to try out some of his ideas on an actual group of boys. On July 25, 1907, he took a diverse group of 21 adolescents to Brownsea Island in Dorsetshire where they set up camp for a fortnight. With the aid of other instructors, he taught the boys about camping, observation, deduction, woodcraft, boating, lifesaving, patriotism, and chivalry. Many of these lessons were learned through inventive games that were very popular with the boys. The first Boy Scouts meeting was a great success. With the success of Scouting for Boys, Baden-Powell set up a central Boy Scouts office, which registered new Scouts and designed a uniform. By the end of 1908, there were 60,000 Boy Scouts, and troops began springing up in British Commonwealth countries across the globe. In September 1909, the first national Boy Scout meeting was held at the Crystal Palace in London. Ten thousand Scouts showed up, including a group of uniformed girls who called themselves the Girl Scouts. In 1910, Baden-Powell organized the Girl Guides as a separate organization. The American version of the Boy Scouts has it origins in an event that occurred in London in 1909. Chicago publisher William Boyce was lost in one of the city's classic fogs when a Boy Scout came to his aid. After guiding Boyce to his destination, the boy refused a tip, explaining that as a Boy Scout he would not accept payment for doing a good deed. This anonymous gesture inspired Boyce to organize several regional U.S. youth organizations, specifically the Woodcraft Indians and the Sons of Daniel Boone, into the Boy Scouts of America. Incorporated on February 8, 1910, the movement soon spread throughout the country. In 1912, Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts of America in Savannah, Georgia. In 1916, Baden-Powell organized the Wolf Cubs, which caught on as the Cub Scouts in the United States, for boys under the age of 11. Four years later, the first international Boy Scout Jamboree was held in London, and Baden-Powell was acclaimed Chief Scout of the world. He died in 1941.

Brent, I stand corrected and I appreciate you pointing that out. I note that announcements come at the END of the Pack Meeting, not in the middle, and the Leader Book (page 24-11) emphasizes that announcements should be brief, to the point, and in writing. They should not be long and drawn out, which is far too often the case. As a UC, this is consistently my biggest concern about my Packs -- they spend far too much time on announcements and far too little having the boys do fun stuff like skits, jokes and songs. Thanx again.

Scouts' debt to cost their members http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060123/NEWS/601230326 Monmouth Council seeks annual fee Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 01/23/06 BY JAMES A. QUIRK STAFF WRITER MARLBORO Struggling to get out from under more than $1 million in debt, the Monmouth Council, Boy Scouts of America, will soon begin to charge each of its Scouts a $52 annual fee to stay afloat. At a packed meeting Jan. 18, held at the Scout Service Center on Ginesi Drive, more than 100 troop leaders and parents, many of whom expressed frustration and confusion, listened to council leaders explain how the organization arrived in such dire financial straits. In a letter sent to local Scoutmasters and troop leaders this week, Monmouth Council officials stated that in the past four years, the organization has gone from having a balanced budget to its current situation: more than $1 million in debt, at least $252,000 of which is considered past due. "None of that money is for building anything or doing anything," said Carl Gross, the council's vice president of fund raising. "It's all for paying professionals, paying electric bills. . . . The problem is that there is from all sources not enough income to cover these expenses." According to council officials, to pay the bills, the Executive Board of the Monmouth Council recently approved the pursuit of a $1.1 million mortgage, which will consolidate the organization's debts. The caveat: To get it, the organization has to show "a guaranteed source of income to repay the loan." And this is where the new annual fee of $52 a year per Scout comes in. Previously, Scouts need only pay the council a one-time registration fee. "As times change, we as a council must change with the times," the letter sent to troop leaders states. "This administrative fee is completely necessary to ensure our survival and the continuation of quality programs for all our Scouts and families. The Scouts are the reason we are all here, and for this same reason, we must all step up to the plate and ensure the survival of Scouting in Monmouth Council." The council is also asking that the parents of Boy Scouts make a matching donation of $52 to help the organization, said Frank Davidson, chairman of the Camping Committee. These donations are not mandatory. To help soften the blow of the annual charge, families with more than one Boy Scout get a 25 percent discount per additional child. Therefore, a parent with three sons in Scouting would pay $52 for the first and $39 each for the second and third. The mandatory fees will be due March 15. Annoyed or unaware While several troop leaders expressed support for the new fees, other leaders and parents are outraged that the Monmouth Council is turning to its young members as a revenue source to bail itself out of a financial tailspin. "This really just goes against the philosophy of Scouting, where they teach honesty and to live within your means," said Pam Semmel, troop committee chair of Troop 22, in Atlantic Highlands and the mother of two grown Eagle Scouts. "Fifty-two dollars is a lot of money to ask families here to take on." At Pack 188's annual Pinewood Derby race, held Friday night at the Frank Defino Central Elementary School in Marlboro, few if any of the Scouts' parents were aware of the annual fees they will soon be asked to pay. The young Cub Scouts present were absorbed with racing their carefully sanded and painted pine race cars, scarfing down hot dogs and chasing each other around the gymnasium. Den leader Mary-Ann Landi, however, was well aware of the situation, as she and other troop leaders recently attended a three-hour meeting similar to the one held Jan. 18 to discuss the council's fiscal crisis. "Our main question was how it got this far," Landi said of the $1 million debt. "And there still isn't a clear answer. . . . My first thought when they told us this was, I have four boys in Scouts. On top of everything else, that's a lot of money." Pack 188 Cubmaster Bill Conway was stunned to learn of the council's huge debt and said his main concern is that the children involved with Scouting not have events like the Pinewood Derby or camping taken away from them. "I think this will shock parents, but it's reality," Conway said. "We either deal with it or we don't. We can't bury our heads in the sand." Membership sinking But asking for $52 a year in fees may hurt the Boy Scouts' dwindling membership numbers. There are 3.15 million youths in Scouting nationwide, according to 2004 figures, the latest available statistics. That number is 6 percent lower than the 2000 enrollment, and the number of adult volunteers has dropped 16 percent over that span. Marjorie Ramirez, treasurer for the New Monmouth Pack 122 in Middletown, said a few years ago, her pack consisted of roughly 80 boys. Now there are 43. "My concern is, out of 43 boys, you may make it 10 when you send that letter out (to parents about the $52 fee)," Ramirez told the council leaders Jan. 18. "It's not so much the Scouts, but the parents who won't want to pay it, and they'll just pull their children out." In a later interview, Ramirez said her pack, unlike many other Boy Scouts groups in the county, actively engages in fund-raising efforts. Last year, each of the pack's Scouts had to meet a personal fund-raising goal of $75. To do this, each Scout had to stand outside a food store in Middletown for three hours selling popcorn. The strategy worked: Ramirez's pack alone brought in $13,000 from the popcorn sales. "They would actually make more money if they made all the packs and troops sell popcorn, instead of making everyone pay $52," Ramirez said. How did it happen? According to Smith, a "perfect storm" of events, not mismanagement, led to the council's current debt crisis. But much of the blame was laid at the feet of the Friends of Scouts (FOS), a fund-raising group that is supposed to work on a grassroots level throughout the county. Late last year, council leaders asked for help from the Boy Scouts' national headquarters in Dallas. Their review, Smith said, found a "profound problem with FOS . . . We have a very anemic FOS that didn't perform even at an anemic level." FOS participation within Monmouth County is the lowest in Area II, which covers more than 14 councils in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and parts of New York. Smith said. Fund-raising efforts from the county's FOS fell $100,000 last year, he said. Since 2000, the council had also "footed the bill for a lot of things we shouldn't have been doing," Smith said. This includes the Learning For Life program, an after-school initiative that helped foster Scout values in non-Boy Scout settings. The majority of the audience at the Jan. 18 meeting was dumbfounded to learn of this program, which cost tens of thousands of dollars to run and has been without national funding for years. One parent shouted, "When did this happen? None of us even know about it!" Council optimistic The council has already written into its budget the $390,000 it expects to receive if each of the county's 7,937 Boy Scouts pay the $52 fee, Davidson said. Though some troop leaders in the audience at the Jan. 18 meeting said they were skeptical the council could meet this goal, the executive leaders expressed optimism that it will happen. A computer slide show shown at the meeting, for example, illustrated how the $52 fee breaks down to $1 a week, and asked, "What did you pay for coffee this week? Is Scouting worth that?" Still, there may be unpleasant consequences if the council can't pay its debts. It's likely that in such a scenario, the Monmouth Council would be forced to merge with another nearby jurisdiction, Smith said. To prove a point, when Smith asked how many members of the audience don't want to see a merger happen, almost everyone raised their hands. Smith explained that the Monmouth Council is one of the few Boy Scout councils in the nation that comprises a single county. And it's likely that if another council took over, one of its first actions would be to sell the Monmouth Council's Scout reservation at Forestburg, N.Y., for profit a hypothetical situation that elicited groans of disgust from the audience. The council's Executive Board first saw storm clouds on its fiscal horizon last year, and almost instituted mandatory $35 fees from Scouts, Gross said. This would have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. Instead, the council opted to ask families for voluntary donations. They collected only $18,000. Council leaders insisted they have run several successful fund-raising mechanisms in recent years. For example, Gross said that Boy Scout sales of popcorn brought in $150,000 last year, and their annual golf outing brought in $117,000. "Every scheme this board could come up with in the last five years, we did," Smith said. "And that's been substantial. But we're at the end of our rope." ON THE WEB: Visit our Web site, www.app.com, and click on Web Extras for a link to: the Boy Scouts of America James A. Quirk: (732) 308-7758 or jquirk@app.com

Actually, the District Committee patch goes in position three, as per the Insignia Guide. Position 2 is blank (that's where the unit numerals normally go).

funscout, I agree with 100% about being hesitant to criticise a volunteer who is doing a job nobody else wanted to do. Perhaps waiting him out is the best thing to do, and deal with the "new administration", as it were. If other parents agree that announcements are getting out of hand, bring it up at your next Committee Meeting and have everyone agree that referring to the newsletter is sufficient -- they don't need to be read out loud. Another way to deal with things like this is to get your Unit Commissioner involved. Sometimes a dis-interested third-party like a UC can say or do things that won't be taken personally, if the same thing was said or done by someone else already in the Pack. If you don't have a UC (or don't know who your UC is), contact your District Commissioner, who should be at RT every month.

funscout, welcome to the Forums! Has your CM been to training? If so, he or she should be aware that there are seven parts to a Pack Meeting, and NONE of them involve announcements! http://www.scouting.org/cubscouts/faststart/cubmaster/03.html Hearing this song should be a reminder to all the adults that a Pack Meeting is for the boys, so the boys can be recognized, show off what they've done, and have fun! A Pack Meeting is not a business meeting where adults drone endlessly on and on about announcements that the boys don't care about. As the Fast Start training says, if you must make announcements, keep them short and put them into a newsletter that you can refer parents to. Rather than changing the song, I'd say your Pack leadership should consider changing how they deal with announcements.

IN Scouter, welcome to the Forums. In order to earn the WDL "knot", you must take WLOT / OWL during your tenure as a WDL, so I recommend you go ahead and take it. I second the suggestion that take IOLS, especially if you plan to be an ASM whe n your son crosses over. You say your Council hasn't offered WLOT for six years? How did WDLs in your Council qualify for the knot if the required training wasn't offered?

Tent company cited in Jamboree deaths http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/7375117p-7287133c.html ELECTROCUTION: OSHA fines company $5,600, says workers not properly trained. By LISA DEMER Anchorage Daily News Published: January 20, 2006 Last Modified: January 20, 2006 at 07:41 AM Workers responsible for putting up the tent involved in the electrocutions of four Boy Scout leaders last summer were not properly trained or qualified for the job, a federal investigation concluded. Three of the Scout leaders killed at the big National Scout Jamboree were Alaskans and the fourth had recently left the state. The tent company, Tents and Events Inc. of Fishersville, Va., faces fines totaling $5,600 for two serious violations of safety standards, according to findings released Thursday by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The company has since gone out of business. Tents and Events sent two workers to the Jamboree on July 25 to erect a huge white tent -- OSHA said it was 40 feet by 40 feet -- rented by Alaska troops for group gatherings. After some Scouts struggled to get the tent up, the four leaders took over. They were electrocuted when the center pole touched an overhead power line. Killed were Michael Shibe, 49, a foreman at Alaska Communications Systems; Michael LaCroix, 42, general manager of VendAlaska; Ronald Bitzer, 58, a retired lawyer and administrative judge; and Scott Powell, 57, who served as resident ranger at Camp Gorsuch before he retired and left Alaska for a family cabin in Ohio last year. Shibe was at the Jamboree with his twin sons; LaCroix also was there with a son. A fifth Scout leader was injured, as were both tent company workers. One suffered burns and was hospitalized. Dozens of people were interviewed during the months-long investigation, which also included visits to the Jamboree site at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia, said Tom Pope, area director of OSHA in Norfolk, Va. "Employees were not adequately trained or familiar with the requirements of electrical safety work practices, nor were they adequately trained or familiar with the recognition of hazards associated with their respective work assignments in the erecting of tents, with conductive parts," the citation said. OSHA also faulted the company because the workers brought the aluminum center pole too close to "unguarded, energized overhead lines," according to the citation. Given their lack of qualification to work near live lines, the pole -- 28 feet, 8 inches tall -- should have been kept at least 10 feet away, OSHA said. The tent company had no history of safety problems with OSHA. The violations were classified as "serious" rather than "willful." The latter is used when a company knows about a safety hazard and fails to address it, Pope said. Most violations are termed serious, he said. Tents and Events cooperated fully with OSHA during the investigation, said Mike Harman, a Richmond, Va., attorney who represents the business. "There were no findings of any intentional misconduct," Harman said. The company's representatives have asked for an informal conference with OSHA. They also can ask for a hearing if they want to formally contest the findings, said Pope, the OSHA official. Even though the tent business is closed, the former owner still has responsibility for what happened, he said. "If they go back into business, we will talk to them about things they need to do, training they need to do," Pope said. The deaths occurred on the opening day of Jamboree. The event drew an estimated 43,000 Scouts, volunteers and staff members to the Fort A.P. Hill Army base in Caroline County, Va. The U.S. Army concluded that the electrocutions were an accident. The Boy Scouts of America are still evaluating their own safety rules and likely will make changes before the next National Scout Jamboree, set for 2010 at Fort A.P. Hill, said national Scout spokesman Gregg Shields. Neither Harman nor Shields was aware of any lawsuits filed over the tent incident. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Daily News reporter Lisa Demer can be reached at ldemer@adn.com and 257-4390.

Tent firm cited in 4 jamboree deaths http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&cid=1128769427686'>http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&cid=1128769427686 http://makeashorterlink.com/?M2EC1308C OSHA says workers not adequately trained in safe electrical-work practices BY KIRAN KRISHNAMURTHY TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Friday, January 20, 2006 FREDERICKSBURG -- A federal agency has issued two "serious" workplace-safety citations against a tent company whose workers were erecting a large canopy when four Boy Scout leaders were killed at the 2005 Boy Scout Jamboree. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which also proposed $5,600 in fines, stated that Tents & Events employees were not adequately trained in safe electrical-work practices, including being able to recognize overhead electrical hazards while putting up large tents. Witnesses said the Scout leaders from Alaska were fatally injured July 25 when the center pole of a large tent they were helping contractors put up touched overhead electrical lines on the first day of the quadrennial event at Fort A.P. Hill in Caroline County. OSHA, which announced its findings yesterday, also cited the company because the workers were too close to three overhead power lines, each of which car- ried 7,200 volts. "I believe that the citations speak for themselves," Charles T. Pope, OSHA's director in Virginia, said when asked if the agency placed blame on the company. Pope said he did not know whether the agency determined why the large tent was being erected near the power lines. Anchorage attorney Ken Schoolcraft, a spokesman for the family of deceased Scout leader Ronald H. Bitzer, said that filing a lawsuit in connection with the leaders' deaths remains a possibility. Officials with the Fishersville-based tent company, which has since closed, can appeal the citations, which were issued Tuesday. Brett Hayes, who owned Tents & Events and still operates RentQuick.com, declined to comment yesterday and referred questions to his attorney, Michael Harman. Harman would not comment on OSHA's specific conclusions but said, "There was no finding, of course, of any intentional wrongdoing." Harman said the company had cooperated fully with OSHA's investigation and was weighing its options, including whether to appeal the findings or pay the fines. Pope said the "serious" classification is assigned after evaluating whether death or serious injury is likely to occur and whether an employer knew with "reasonable diligence" that a violation existed. OSHA's fine for a "serious" violation is a maximum $7,000, or up to $70,000 if the violation is willful. "This wasn't repeated, it wasn't willful," Pope said. The accident claimed the lives of Bitzer, 58; Mike Lacroix, 42; and Michael J. Shibe, 49, all of Anchorage; and Scott Edward Powell, 57, who had moved from Anchorage to Perrysville, Ohio, in 2004. Shibe's twin sons and Lacroix's son, all 14, each witnessed the death of his father. Earlier this month, Army officials said their separate criminal investigation into the electrocution found no evidence of criminal culpability and that the Army would classify the deaths as accidental. The Western Alaska Council organized two jamboree troops, 711 and 712, and hired a contractor to put up large tents in which the troops could eat, meet and escape the heat during the 10-day event, which draws nearly 40,000 Scouts, leaders and staffers. While other troops from far-flung places, including other parts of Alaska, used picnic-style canopies no more than 8 or 10 feet tall, OSHA reported the center tent pole of the Western Alaskans' canopies measured 28 feet, 8 inches. Bill Haines, the Western Alaska Council's executive leader, said previously that the two contractors asked the Alaska leaders for help when the second canopy was ready to be raised. Haines did not return phone calls seeking comment yesterday. Brian Anderson, a Scout leader from Utah who witnessed the accident, told The Times-Dispatch a few days after the deaths that had not seen a spotter outside the tent, directing the men as they raised the metal pole from beneath the canopy on the sloping campsite. Boy Scout of America officials and other Scouts have said Scouts are taught not to erect tents under power lines. The Army and the BSA consult on a master plan, but spokesmen for the Army and the organization have been unable to say who has ultimate authority or responsibility, or how detailed the plan is. The next jamboree is scheduled to be held at A.P. Hill in 2010, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America. The Justice Department, meanwhile, has appealed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago a ruling last summer that held the Pentagon could no longer spend government money to ready A.P. Hill for the jamboree. The ruling from a federal judge in Chicago stems from an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit filed on behalf of a United Methodist minister. The lawsuit contends government funding for the event is unconstitutional because the Scouts discriminate on the basis of religion by requiring Scouts to pledge a "duty to God." The event has been held at A.P. Hill since 1981. Contact staff writer Kiran Krishnamurthy at kkrishnamurthy@timesdispatch.com or (540) 371-4792. This story can be found at: http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&cid=1128769427686

Scout deaths bring fines http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2006/012006/01202006/161599 http://makeashorterlink.com/?E23C1408C January 20, 2006 12:50 am Federal agency says Virginia tent company committed 'serious' safety violations at National Scout Jamboree By JEFF BRANSCOME Federal safety officials investigating the electrocution of four Boy Scout leaders on the opening day of last summer's National Scout Jamboree have cited a now-defunct Virginia company for two "serious" violations. Occupational Safety and Health Administration spokeswoman Leni Uddyback-Fortson said yesterday that the agency has fined Tents and Events Inc. of Fishersville $2,800 for each violation. The Scout leaders were killed July 25 at Fort A.P. Hill in Caroline County when a 28-foot aluminum center pole for a large dining tent they were erecting struck a power line. The men had been helping two contractors from Tents and Events, which has since closed. "Basically, the one violation was due to the fact that employees weren't trained and familiar with safety-related work practices," Uddyback-Fortson said. The citation first states that the contractors didn't recognize "hazards associated with their respective work assignments in the erecting of tents, with conductive parts." Next, it states that the two workers raised the pole with no regard to the "required minimum safe distance of 10 feet" from the three overhead power lines. Each line carried 7,200 volts of electricity, according to OSHA. The victims were Michael J. Shibe, 49, Mike Lacroix, 42, and Ronald H. Bitzer, 58, all of Anchorage, Alaska, and Scott Edward Powell, 57, of Perrysville, Ohio. Shibe and Lacroix had sons participating in the jamboree. OSHA can levy fines of up to $7,000 for each serious violation, said Charles T. Pope, area director in the agency's Norfolk office. The fine for Tents and Events was lower because of the company's size and the fact that it had no history of violations, he said. "We reduce the penalty a lot for a small employer," Pope said. RentQuick.com of Waynesboro, the parent company of Tents and Events, has until Feb. 8 to appeal the fines. The company has scheduled an "informal conference" Tuesday with OSHA representatives, Pope said. Company officials can present any evidence they believe would support adjusting the citations, he said. "We can settle the case there," Pope said. "If we can't agree, then they would issue a notice of contest" to the U.S. Department of Labor office in Norfolk. RentQuick.com owner Brett Hayes referred questions to his lawyer, Mike Harman of Richmond. "I have a business to run," Hayes said. Harman said the company received the citation Wednesday and "cooperated fully with the OSHA investigation." A separate Army investigation into the electrocutions will deem the deaths accidental, a spokesman for the Criminal Investigation Command said Jan. 6. At that time, spokesman Chris Grey said the investigation would be officially closed in about two weeks. He could not be reached for comment yesterday. "As you know, there was no finding of any intentional misconduct," Harman said. "It continues to be what it was all along, and that's a very tragic accident." Harman said the company is considering its options as it reviews the citation. "No decision has been made" other than to attend the informal meeting, he said. If the company appeals the fines, an administrative law judge will hear the case. The judge's ruling could be appealed to a three-member commission, then to federal court. A secretary for Bill Haines, chief executive officer of the Western Alaska Boy Scout Council in Anchorage, referred questions yesterday to the Boy Scouts of America's' national office in Irving, Texas. Boy Scouts of America spokesman Gregg Shields said he had no reaction to OSHA's action, but emphasized his organization's commitment to safety. "We're going to look at everything we can to make the next jamboree and every event we host as safe as possible," he said. Shields said the Boy Scouts do not provide a list of recommended vendors or contractors to troops participating in the jamboree. Kenneth G. Schoolcraft, an Anchorage attorney and spokesman for the family of Ronald Bitzer, said he does not believe any of the deceased Scout leaders' families have filed civil lawsuits in their deaths. The families of Shibe and Lacroix could not be reached for comment. "She's just got other things that have a higher priority for her," Schoolcraft said of Bitzer's widow, Carol. "They spend so much time just dealing with the fact that a central part of their family is now gone." As for the investigations, the Army and OSHA didn't issue views on "the broad spectrum of what occurred," he said. The Army focused on criminal culpability, Schoolcraft explained, while OSHA looked for safety violations by the contractor. He said the agencies didn't investigate "whether other entities may have done something or not done something that could have contributed to the accident." To reach JEFF BRANSCOME:540/374-5402 Email: jbranscome@freelancestar.com