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My children attended Montessori schools, and it really is a wonderful system. I would really like to see an extension of this learning method up through high s

My children attended Montessori schools, and it really is a wonderful system. I would really like to see an extension of this learning method up through high school --- the closest thing I'm aware of was a school I attended in Mississippi for a couple of years --- classes were divided between academic and social, social classes (homeroom, phys ed, social studies, &c.) were attended at one's age, while academic classes (reading, math, science, geography, history, &c.) were by ability (with a limit on no more than 4 grades ahead up to 8th grade) --- after 8th grade that was removed and students were allowed to take any classes. Some of the faculty were accredited as faculty at a local college, and where warranted, either professors travelled from there to the school, or students travelled to the college for classes --- it wasn't uncommon for students to graduate high school and simultaneously be awarded a college degree. Apparently, the system was deemed unfair because it accorded a benefit to the students who were able to take advantage of it, with no commensurate compensation for those who were not, so the Miss. State Supreme Court dismantled it.

Zigurd 1y ago
It's hard to do self paced learning when there's no follow up. I got put into a self-paced learning experiment where we polished off the curriculum in three weeks and played chess the rest of the semester. There was nothing else for us to do. Nobody was ready to fill the remaining months. The whole school has to commit in that direction for that to succeed.
- WillAdams 1y ago
  Yeah, as one worked forward, one would arrive in the new class and be handed a stack of work required to catch up to where the class was at (moving forward at the end of a school year was strongly discouraged, but some kids would do it --- if need be, one could take the unfinished assignments home at the end of the year and work on them over the summer, turning them in at the beginning of the year).
sushp 1y ago
I had a good impression of "Montessori" from hearing that Larry/Sergey/Bezos went to one. When I put my kid in it at 3 years old, he hated it. As I looked into it more, it seems to me that it is actually very rigid, with kids being able to play with just a small set of toys that don't really exercise their creativity, and with little opportunity for group play. We switched him to a Reggio Emilia school where the kids are constantly doing group projects and art and he enjoys it a lot more. I recommend parents observe what's actually happening in classrooms and think about what's best for their kid in the early years instead of assuming "Montessori" is the best path.
- WillAdams 1y ago
  It really depends on the teacher (like most school systems) and the support of the parents --- a fellow woodworker and I were enlisted to help make educational aids at one of the schools my daughter attended) --- agree one needs to find the best thing for each child.
- _yb2s 1y ago
  There are different “factions” and accreditation organizations in Montessori. Some are more liberal and others are authoritarian and rigid. Not all Montessori schools are like you describe, but some certainly are.
  - ghostpepper 1y ago
    I agree, and sadly this kind of gives the Montessori label pretty limited predictive value. Turns out you just need to find a good school, regardless of label.
    - _yb2s 1y ago
      It really comes down to the teachers skill and personality- and that often comes down to if the school can afford the best teachers. Often in the USA regular public schools in wealthy communities will have better teachers than you will find at most private Montessori schools.
genghisjahn 1y ago
I can’t find any record of a Mississippi Supreme Court decision regarding a program like you described. I did find evidence that Mississippi actively permits dual enrollment for secondary and post secondary education. Do you have a source for the decision you referenced? https://law.justia.com/codes/mississippi/title-37/chapter-15/section-37-15-38/ https://law.justia.com/codes/mississippi/title-37/chapter-15...
- WillAdams 1y ago
  No, after I left the school it was all second/third-hand from letters to my folks from other parents whose children were still attending.
- fsckboy 1y ago
  he didn't say it went to the Supreme Court or even any Mississippi court he said it was dismantled. teacher's unions and their political allies and pliant schoolboards are always vehemently opposed to any programs like this. something that shows some students excelling and or makes some teachers look good just makes other teachers look bad, and that raises questions and increases scrutiny from outside, and they can't allow that.
sgarland 1y ago
There are a few K-12 Montessori schools, but not many. My wife is a primary (3-5 year olds) at the only one in our state. My kids are in 2nd and 4th grade, and we intend to see it through. They love it.
didibus 1y ago
> while academic classes (reading, math, science, geography, history, &c.) were by ability My issue with this is that it just is selection bias, telling you nothing about how good the method is at teaching. Does placing by ability actually helps student learn and score better? Or it's just that those who are good and bad already get divided up, and we know not why some are good and others are worse?
- michaelt 1y ago
  > Does placing by ability actually helps student learn and score better? Yes, you shunt all the disruptive/obstinate kids into class 2 and they can spend 4 hours of math lessons every week rehashing arguments about how they have a phone so they don't need to know what 7x12 is. This means the students in class 1 get undisrupted classes, learning more and raising their grades. Because of the way these things are done, it does have the unfortunate side effect that the kid who struggles with math because he's dyslexic gets put in a class with the kid who doesn't give a shit about math. But they'd be in the same even if the school didn't place by ability, so they're not that much worse off.
  - didibus 1y ago
    > This means the students in class 1 get undisrupted classes, learning more and raising their grades. That's pure hypothetical, and some disruptive kids are also good and could make it to the top class and still be a class clown. Unless you propose more splitting kids up by "disruptiveness". I don't think any of this tells us of the quality of the method for actually teaching. It's like schools that have really hard entrance exams, and than assert they are the best school, yes in terms that they only allowed the smartest to come in, off course they will see that the students at the school is good, but those students would be good regardless.
    - diordiderot 1y ago
      It isn't hypothetical, lower disruptive peer-behaviour in a class is associated with better outcomes for the class, across the world.
NedF 1y ago
> and it really is a wonderful system. Absolutely, how many ghetto kids are in the school? It weeds them out through $ and expulsions. Thinking the Montessori system is relevant to the public system shows your schooling failed. Montessori has the ability to chose pedagogy so certainly has facets that are the quite good and should be applied publicly except for liberal arts graduate ideals. This study is very young children, limited pregnancies and gang bangers, and also not random. It's randomised on kids who enter the lottery. Discipline is the only thing that matters in schools, $, class sizes, teacher education levels above average, amazing resources all don't matter except how it apply to discipline. We have 100+ years of data. Air-conditioning to control behavior is an example of what helps. Liberal arts graduates destroy anything else that could work so don't interact with them, stay outside their broken world.
- savingsPossible 1y ago
  > Discipline is the only thing that matters in schools, $, class sizes, teacher education levels above average, amazing resources all don't matter except how it apply to discipline. Got a citation/link?
- em-bee 1y ago
  the montessori method implements discipline. that's one of its features. weeding out ghetto kids is not. that's a problem coming from lack of support from the community/government to pay for a montessori school for those kids. and expulsions should not happen. again, not a feature of montessori education.
- pton_xd 1y ago
  > Discipline is the only thing that matters in schools I thought it was parenting? This study claims that "parental involvement is a more significant factor in a child’s academic performance than the qualities of the school itself." [0] I couldn't find better sources on my phone but this is a theme I've heard repeated over and over throughout my life. Parenting makes the difference. [0] https://news.ncsu.edu/2012/10/wms-parcel-parents/ https://news.ncsu.edu/2012/10/wms-parcel-parents/
phkahler 1y ago
>> because it accorded a benefit to the students who were able to take advantage of it, with no commensurate compensation for those who were not I came to comment (without reading it) that the study results are probably not universal. The programs are self selecting because kids not suited for it won't stay. This is not a critique of the program or the kids who dont fit it. Just an observation that its so "extreme" that only kids who benefit will stay.
unethical_ban 1y ago
My biggest skepticism about Mamdani in NYC is that he wants to get rid of gifted programs. Apparently some thing it's wrong to adjust each child's learning experience to their capacity for learning. Which is... Wild. If an 8 year old can do algebra, let them cook.
- lazyasciiart 1y ago
  That’s not what he said. He wants to get rid of kids being tracked into gifted kindergartens because a) it’s ludicrous and b) testing four year olds is just a roundabout way of finding the kids with parents who got them a tutor for kindergarten entrance exams, and the replacement metric of getting pre-k teachers to pick them is not much different. He argues that kids don’t need to be shuffled off to special schools until more like 8 years old, when the 2nd grade testing happens. He also obviously doesn’t believe it’s wrong to adjust learning to capacity. He just has the less popular view that this can be done without tagging kids at four years old and changing their lives. (He probably also understands that there’s plenty a brilliant math kid who belongs in a standard English class, or even in remedial classes to deal with a concurrent learning disability).
  - unethical_ban 1y ago
    If this is true then I stand corrected. I understand the bias of "rich kids get training" so if he is not killing gifted programs but merely adjusting them, then fine.
    - lazyasciiart 1y ago
      I was blown away when I learned that public schools were testing kids before kindergarten and actually assigning the kids to different schools based on the result. I'd only ever heard of that as a "rich people pressure-cooker dystopia" kind of practice. https://www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025/10/02/zohran-mamdani-gifted-and-talented-nyc-school-segregation-cuomo-sliwa/ https://www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025/10/02/zohran-mamdani-...
  - sersi 1y ago
thaumasiotes 1y ago
> (with a limit on no more than 4 grades ahead up to 8th grade) --- after 8th grade that was removed and students were allowed to take any classes. Unless this school had more than 12 grades, why would you describe that as "the limit being removed"?
brightball 1y ago
I’ve been advocating for this for years so I’m glad to hear you had such a good experience. At the elementary level, up until about 3rd or 4th grade it always made more sense to me to have lots of smaller “neighborhood” level Montessori schools rather than a few large schools from Kindergarten - 6th.
JKCalhoun 1y ago
There was a lot of experimentation with education methods in the 1970's, of which I benefited. I miss the way that decade began for the optimism and courage to experiment.

Zigurd 1y ago

It's hard to do self paced learning when there's no follow up. I got put into a self-paced learning experiment where we polished off the curriculum in three weeks and played chess the rest of the semester. There was nothing else for us to do. Nobody was ready to fill the remaining months. The whole school has to commit in that direction for that to succeed.

WillAdams 1y ago
Yeah, as one worked forward, one would arrive in the new class and be handed a stack of work required to catch up to where the class was at (moving forward at the end of a school year was strongly discouraged, but some kids would do it --- if need be, one could take the unfinished assignments home at the end of the year and work on them over the summer, turning them in at the beginning of the year).

sushp 1y ago

I had a good impression of "Montessori" from hearing that Larry/Sergey/Bezos went to one. When I put my kid in it at 3 years old, he hated it. As I looked into it more, it seems to me that it is actually very rigid, with kids being able to play with just a small set of toys that don't really exercise their creativity, and with little opportunity for group play. We switched him to a Reggio Emilia school where the kids are constantly doing group projects and art and he enjoys it a lot more. I recommend parents observe what's actually happening in classrooms and think about what's best for their kid in the early years instead of assuming "Montessori" is the best path.

WillAdams 1y ago
It really depends on the teacher (like most school systems) and the support of the parents --- a fellow woodworker and I were enlisted to help make educational aids at one of the schools my daughter attended) --- agree one needs to find the best thing for each child.
_yb2s 1y ago
There are different “factions” and accreditation organizations in Montessori. Some are more liberal and others are authoritarian and rigid. Not all Montessori schools are like you describe, but some certainly are.
- ghostpepper 1y ago
  I agree, and sadly this kind of gives the Montessori label pretty limited predictive value. Turns out you just need to find a good school, regardless of label.
  - _yb2s 1y ago
    It really comes down to the teachers skill and personality- and that often comes down to if the school can afford the best teachers. Often in the USA regular public schools in wealthy communities will have better teachers than you will find at most private Montessori schools.

genghisjahn 1y ago

I can’t find any record of a Mississippi Supreme Court decision regarding a program like you described. I did find evidence that Mississippi actively permits dual enrollment for secondary and post secondary education. Do you have a source for the decision you referenced? https://law.justia.com/codes/mississippi/title-37/chapter-15/section-37-15-38/ https://law.justia.com/codes/mississippi/title-37/chapter-15...

WillAdams 1y ago
No, after I left the school it was all second/third-hand from letters to my folks from other parents whose children were still attending.
fsckboy 1y ago
he didn't say it went to the Supreme Court or even any Mississippi court he said it was dismantled. teacher's unions and their political allies and pliant schoolboards are always vehemently opposed to any programs like this. something that shows some students excelling and or makes some teachers look good just makes other teachers look bad, and that raises questions and increases scrutiny from outside, and they can't allow that.

sgarland 1y ago

There are a few K-12 Montessori schools, but not many. My wife is a primary (3-5 year olds) at the only one in our state. My kids are in 2nd and 4th grade, and we intend to see it through. They love it.

didibus 1y ago

> while academic classes (reading, math, science, geography, history, &c.) were by ability My issue with this is that it just is selection bias, telling you nothing about how good the method is at teaching. Does placing by ability actually helps student learn and score better? Or it's just that those who are good and bad already get divided up, and we know not why some are good and others are worse?

michaelt 1y ago
> Does placing by ability actually helps student learn and score better? Yes, you shunt all the disruptive/obstinate kids into class 2 and they can spend 4 hours of math lessons every week rehashing arguments about how they have a phone so they don't need to know what 7x12 is. This means the students in class 1 get undisrupted classes, learning more and raising their grades. Because of the way these things are done, it does have the unfortunate side effect that the kid who struggles with math because he's dyslexic gets put in a class with the kid who doesn't give a shit about math. But they'd be in the same even if the school didn't place by ability, so they're not that much worse off.
- didibus 1y ago
  > This means the students in class 1 get undisrupted classes, learning more and raising their grades. That's pure hypothetical, and some disruptive kids are also good and could make it to the top class and still be a class clown. Unless you propose more splitting kids up by "disruptiveness". I don't think any of this tells us of the quality of the method for actually teaching. It's like schools that have really hard entrance exams, and than assert they are the best school, yes in terms that they only allowed the smartest to come in, off course they will see that the students at the school is good, but those students would be good regardless.
  - diordiderot 1y ago
    It isn't hypothetical, lower disruptive peer-behaviour in a class is associated with better outcomes for the class, across the world.

NedF 1y ago

> and it really is a wonderful system. Absolutely, how many ghetto kids are in the school? It weeds them out through $ and expulsions. Thinking the Montessori system is relevant to the public system shows your schooling failed. Montessori has the ability to chose pedagogy so certainly has facets that are the quite good and should be applied publicly except for liberal arts graduate ideals. This study is very young children, limited pregnancies and gang bangers, and also not random. It's randomised on kids who enter the lottery. Discipline is the only thing that matters in schools, $, class sizes, teacher education levels above average, amazing resources all don't matter except how it apply to discipline. We have 100+ years of data. Air-conditioning to control behavior is an example of what helps. Liberal arts graduates destroy anything else that could work so don't interact with them, stay outside their broken world.

savingsPossible 1y ago
> Discipline is the only thing that matters in schools, $, class sizes, teacher education levels above average, amazing resources all don't matter except how it apply to discipline. Got a citation/link?
em-bee 1y ago
the montessori method implements discipline. that's one of its features. weeding out ghetto kids is not. that's a problem coming from lack of support from the community/government to pay for a montessori school for those kids. and expulsions should not happen. again, not a feature of montessori education.
pton_xd 1y ago
> Discipline is the only thing that matters in schools I thought it was parenting? This study claims that "parental involvement is a more significant factor in a child’s academic performance than the qualities of the school itself." [0] I couldn't find better sources on my phone but this is a theme I've heard repeated over and over throughout my life. Parenting makes the difference. [0] https://news.ncsu.edu/2012/10/wms-parcel-parents/ https://news.ncsu.edu/2012/10/wms-parcel-parents/

phkahler 1y ago

>> because it accorded a benefit to the students who were able to take advantage of it, with no commensurate compensation for those who were not I came to comment (without reading it) that the study results are probably not universal. The programs are self selecting because kids not suited for it won't stay. This is not a critique of the program or the kids who dont fit it. Just an observation that its so "extreme" that only kids who benefit will stay.

unethical_ban 1y ago

My biggest skepticism about Mamdani in NYC is that he wants to get rid of gifted programs. Apparently some thing it's wrong to adjust each child's learning experience to their capacity for learning. Which is... Wild. If an 8 year old can do algebra, let them cook.

lazyasciiart 1y ago
That’s not what he said. He wants to get rid of kids being tracked into gifted kindergartens because a) it’s ludicrous and b) testing four year olds is just a roundabout way of finding the kids with parents who got them a tutor for kindergarten entrance exams, and the replacement metric of getting pre-k teachers to pick them is not much different. He argues that kids don’t need to be shuffled off to special schools until more like 8 years old, when the 2nd grade testing happens. He also obviously doesn’t believe it’s wrong to adjust learning to capacity. He just has the less popular view that this can be done without tagging kids at four years old and changing their lives. (He probably also understands that there’s plenty a brilliant math kid who belongs in a standard English class, or even in remedial classes to deal with a concurrent learning disability).
- unethical_ban 1y ago
  If this is true then I stand corrected. I understand the bias of "rich kids get training" so if he is not killing gifted programs but merely adjusting them, then fine.
  - lazyasciiart 1y ago
    I was blown away when I learned that public schools were testing kids before kindergarten and actually assigning the kids to different schools based on the result. I'd only ever heard of that as a "rich people pressure-cooker dystopia" kind of practice. https://www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025/10/02/zohran-mamdani-gifted-and-talented-nyc-school-segregation-cuomo-sliwa/ https://www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025/10/02/zohran-mamdani-...
- sersi 1y ago

thaumasiotes 1y ago

> (with a limit on no more than 4 grades ahead up to 8th grade) --- after 8th grade that was removed and students were allowed to take any classes. Unless this school had more than 12 grades, why would you describe that as "the limit being removed"?

brightball 1y ago

I’ve been advocating for this for years so I’m glad to hear you had such a good experience. At the elementary level, up until about 3rd or 4th grade it always made more sense to me to have lots of smaller “neighborhood” level Montessori schools rather than a few large schools from Kindergarten - 6th.

JKCalhoun 1y ago

There was a lot of experimentation with education methods in the 1970's, of which I benefited. I miss the way that decade began for the optimism and courage to experiment.