Public Montessori Schools in the US Keep Growing

On 20 December 2019, we published an article tilted, Enter Public Montessori. This was the 6th part in our amazing series on Montessori in the USA. This article describes how the first public Montessori school in the USA was established in 1975, now called Sands Montessori School, in Cincinnati.

This article also pays homage to the great work of the National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector (NCMPS) and reports on their statistics up to the end of 2020. It is necessary to summarize that information here. By the end of 2020, there were 150,000 students in 517 public Montessori schools. Nearly half of those children came from poor families.

In a newsletter circulated on 12 March 2022, the NCMPS shared their then latest facts and figures for public Montessori schools in the USA. Number of schools: Over 550. Number of states involved: 43, including Puerto Rico. Size of public Montessori student population: roughly 50%. Student breakdown: the majority are ‘Black, indigenous, and People of Color’. Student socio-economic status: about half qualify for free and reduced lunch. A look at the NCMPS website right now, will show that 571 public Montessori schools have participated in the NCMPS Census. The NCMPS maintains an online census for public and private Montessori schools. The census is public and all Montessori schools in the US are invited by them to update the Census.  You can find the census here.  

Many schools that are not registered in the census. This means that Montessori is much bigger than the Census. We are aware of many initiatives that will greatly explode the number of public Montessori schools in the US in the coming months.