Why Ag Ed

Agricultural Education has a solid track record. Nearly 80 percent of agriculture's graduating seniors enter postsecondary education - that's a 10 percent increase from 2001.

It's working. The program has experienced a steady increase in the number of students in high school agricultural/horticultural education programs and FFA. About 56 percent are urban students and 34 percent are female.

It serves more and more student high school graduation needs. About 75 percent of the departments allow agriculture courses to fulfill high school graduation requirements in academic areas of math, science, language arts, social studies and consumer education.

An average $3200 in state incentive funding is awarded to local programs to purchase state-of-the-art equipment and curriculum materials. Incentive funding has saved many agricultural programs from extinction as well.

Online curriculum with more than 600 agricultural lesson plans have been developed and are provided free of charge to Illinois agricultural teachers. The material, which is based upon Illinois Learning, Occupational Skill and Workplace Skill Standards, is now being used in 42 other states and the curriculum has been adopted in its entirety in 14 states.