News

New standards set for ag education

The National Council for Agricultural Education released new educational standards to better prepare students for careers in agriculture, food and natural resources.  The revisions include input from educators, industry and state leaders.

Mike Honeycutt, Managing Director for the Council, says this is the first update since the original standards were released in 2009.  “What you would see new in the classroom would be aligning with new measurements, new technologies, new pieces that have developed within the eight different ag, food and natural resources pathways in the last six years.”

He says agricultural education is very local and what educators may be teaching could be dramatically different.  “The West is different than the Midwest and the Midwest different than the Southeast, and even within states you see a lot of that difference.”

Honeycutt tells Brownfield, he hopes teachers can find building blocks within the revisions and apply it to their classroom curriculum.  Guidelines address classroom and lab instruction, work-based learning, and career and technical student organizations.

He says the revisions better align with Common Career Technical Core and national academic standards.  Honeycutt adds the Center will also be revising program standards which will address experiential learning and extracurricular activities.

AUDIO: Interview with Mike Honeycutt (8:03 mp3):