The teacher shortage phenomenon has plagued all subjects in education in the United States, agriculture education is not immune. Constantly facing inquiries and concerns from stakeholders about the number of Ag Teachers that are produced by Oregon State University, I examine the agricultural education Program Completers from the National Association of Agricultural Educators (NAAE) Region 1 states that have one institution producing Ag Teachers for the last ten years. This study aids in program evaluation and warrants further examination into the model each University is using to produce Agriculture Education Program Completers (aka: Ag Teachers).
Sourcing data from the National Agriculture Education Supply and Demand Project (Foster et al., 2025) of 1327 reports, I focused on examining States in the area called Region 1 members of the NAAE professional organization which include: Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. This project analyzes data to answer the research question: How does Oregon compare to States in NAAE Region 1 from 2014-2024?
In the plots below, exploration of the sample of NAAE Region 1 States was narrowed again by the number of institutions in the state with Agricultural Education programs to best compare to Oregon. The state of Oregon has one institution with an Agricultural Education Program that reports to the National Agriculture Education Supply and Demand Project, Oregon State University. California has five institutions, California State Polytechnic University-Fresno,California State Polytechnic University-Pomona, California State Polytechnic University- San Luis Obispo, California State University- Chico and University of California - Davis that report data to the National Supply and Demand Project (Foster et al., 2025). In the study below, states with one reporting institution are displayed including: Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming.
Plot 1: Multi-Line Time Series Plot of the Program Completers (2014-2024). This plot showcases the trend of each states reported Program Completers over ten years. As you hover over the interactive plot, each line represents a State in the NAAE Region 1 that has one Institution with an agricultural education program.
Plot 2: Bar Chart with Range Indicators of Program Completers by State. This plot showcases the average Program Completer from each State over the last ten years, and provides insight in the range of Program Completers in terms of the minimum Program Completers and the maximum Program Completers that State has reported from 2014 - 2024.
Through exploration of the available data, Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Montana were found to have the highest average program completers each year, all reporting 8 or more program completers. Washington shows the highest average Program Completers over the last ten years, averaging 8.9 program completers per year. Oregon was found to report the most consistent program completers with a range from 7 program completers to 10 program completers over the last ten years. Nevada was found to produce the smallest average program completers, with 2.3 program completers on average over the last ten years.
In conclusion, Oregon is competitive with states in this region with one institution housing agricultural education programs. Placing in the top 50% of the sample analyzed, Oregon is producing about 8 program completers each year from the agricultural education program at Oregon State University. While Washington and Idaho report the highest average program compeleters, 8.9 and 8.6 respectively, they also reported the largest ranges of program completers over the last ten years. Washington reported a minimum of 3 program completers in 2014 and 15 program completers in 2019 and Idaho reported a minimum of 2 program completers in 2015 followed by 17 program completers in 2016.
With this data we can confidently assess the states that are producing agricultural educators, ready and equipped to take lead on a secondary classroom, making their mark as Ag Teachers.
Speculations can be made while examining Plot 1, the multi-line time series plot, about the dramatic peaks and valleys reported from Idaho. We can also speculate reasons that there is no reported data from Idaho, Nevada or Wyoming in 2021 might be due to an impeding world event, however further research will need to be conducted to confirm any suspicions.
Next is to consider the program type that Ag Teachers are completing from each state. There are two primary types of agricultural education program, first a Master’s Program (like OSU), second a Bachelor’s program (like WSU). A future research inquiry would be to assess how the diferent types of program impact the production of agricultural education program completers.
Foster, D. D., Smith, A. R., Rogers, A., Lawver, R. G., & Spiess, M., (2025). National Agricultural Education Supply and Demand Project [data set]. American Association for Agricultural Education. http://nsd.aaaeonline.org.
Kleinjan, M., & Marx, A.A., (2018). AAAE Degree Resource [pdf]. American Association for Agricultural Education. https://aaea.wildapricot.org/AgEdInstitutions