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?
Plot 3: 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. Total Completers represents the number of graduates from the agricultural education program in that State.
Plot 4: Bar Chart of Average Program Completers with Range indicators 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.
Comment: I believe this chart is now better represents the data and answers the research question: How does Oregon compare to States in NAAE Region 1 from 2014-2024?
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.
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.