Agricultural Education is an integral part of the Illinois School Code. (Control F, type in FFA, click next to view) Classroom instruction, FFA membership, and Supervised Agricultural Experience(SAE) are required for funding.
Administrative Code - Illinois Agricultural Education Rules
Agricultural Education has a solid track record. The program has experienced a steady increase in the number of students in high school agricultural/horticultural education programs and FFA.
91 percent of students are non-farm students, 40 percent are female, and 7 percent are minority
. It serves more and more student high school graduation needs.
80 percent of the departments allow agriculture courses to fulfill high school graduation requirements
in academic areas of science, consumer education, math, language arts, and social studies.
More than 70 percent of agriculture's graduating seniors enter postsecondary education
Approximately $4000 in state incentive funding
is awarded annually to each local program to purchase state-of-the-art equipment and curriculum materials. Incentive funding has saved many agricultural programs from closing. Online curriculum with more than 850
agricultural lesson plans have been developed and are provided free of charge
to Illinois agricultural teachers. The curriculum resources aligned to Illinois Academic Learning, Standards are now used in 42 other states and the curriculum has been adopted in its entirety in 14 states.