Collaboration: Alum + Alum + Alum

Two of them learned about Montessori schools, based on a child-centered philosophy developed by Italian educator Maria Montessori, as parents in search of childcare for their son. One learned about the schools as a young student. Together, these three Ed School alums created an information and research center two years ago to promote the philosophy — in public schools.

“Jackie and I moved to Williamsburg, Virginia, when our son, Jack, was three,” explains Keith Whitescarver, C.A.S.’90, Ed.D.’95, director of the National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector. They visited a local independent Montessori, knowing nothing about the school or style of learning. Jackie Cossentino, Ed.M.’91, Ed.D.’99, immediately fell in love. Their son liked it, too, so they stayed — through sixth grade.

Sara Suchman, Ed.D.’12, on the other hand, felt she was “working too hard and learning too little” in her regular middle school, so she switched to a Montessori school for eighth and ninth grades. Later, as a doctoral student at the Ed School, she was frustrated, she says, with talk of education reform that seemed like “traditional education on steroids rather than a substantively different way to think about how children learn and what school could be.” She started looking at public Montessori schools. While finishing her dissertation, she asked Cossentino to be a reader for her qualifying paper. Four years later, in 2012, she joined Cossentino, senior associate and director of research, and Whitescarver, when they created the National Center, based in West Hartford, Connecticut.

Since then, they have seen a huge jump in the number of public schools that are Montessori centered. Although private Montessori schools still dominate, with more than 4,000 across the country, there are now nearly 440 public Montessori schools, with South Carolina, California, and Arizona topping the list of states with the most. According to Whitescarver, more than half of those public Montessori schools have opened their doors in the last decade. High on the list of reasons why, he says, is parent dissatisfaction with current education models offered in public schools.

“Parents looking for a student-centered yet academically rigorous alternative find Montessori,” he says. “Many of the groups with whom we work are parent groups. One example of this is in Boston. Boston Public Schools (BPS) had a small Montessori program in the East Boston Early Education Center. Parent efforts urging the district to expand the program led to BPS deciding to open a stand-alone Montessori school, Dante Alighieri Montessori, this year.”

Still, the group can’t imagine every school in the United States — public or private — following the Montessori way.

“Though we clearly value a Montessori education for all children, we also recognize that different families have different priorities and inclinations,” Whitescarver says. “There isn’t any desire in the Montessori community to force Montessori on districts or parents, and there certainly isn’t the political will to do so.”