Measuring School-Based Agriculture Education Total Program Success: Classroom, FFA, and SAE

The Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) is exploring options for determining effectiveness of career and technical eduction programs. The purpose of this study was to deteremine the metrics Tennessee agricultural education teachers perceived as indicators of excellent total programs – classroom instruction, FFA (student organization), and Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE). A Delphi was used to obtain a general consensus by a panel of 21 agriculture teacher experts. A 66.7% agreement rate was determined a priori to represent a general consensus. The panel identified one classroom, five FFA, and three SAE metrics to indicate total program excellence. Student pesticide certification was the one classroom metric agreed upon by the panel. Current reform efforts such as end-of-course exams and classroom observations were not accepted as a measure of classroom program success. Aspects related to FFA activities, career development events, and chapter service were agreed upon as metrics of FFA success. In relation to SAE success, SAE participation, obtaining an American degree, and submitting a regional proficiency application were agreed upon. Due to the lack of classroom agreement, TDOE should consider means for building concensus among teachers before implementing classroom assessment and review the appropriateness of the agreed upon FFA and SAE metrics.