Montessori Leaders Collaborative

In 2011, Trust for Learning began to support the Montessori Leaders Collaborative (MLC), a community of leaders from national Montessori organizations who worked collaboratively to expand access for underserved children and families.

Context and Need

Montessori education is an ideal learning approach with a highly personalized, developmentally appropriate, holistic model of education. Access to Montessori education in the United States, however, has historically been limited, especially for low-income families and families of color. As a result, there is a need for Montessori leaders to overcome their differences and build a common movement. 

Goals and Impact

Trust for Learning convened the MLC in 2011 to build relationships and trust between Montessori leaders in order to coalesce around a shared vision and strategy for bringing Montessori education to significantly more children. Over nearly a decade, this dynamic group of leaders achieved a great deal. In order to expand access, the MLC: collected data on Montessori programs in the U.S. and created the Montessori Census website to make it publicly available; created the Teach Montessori website to help facilitate and streamline the educator pipeline; organized a resource hub entitled Access Montessori for communities implementing or expanding Montessori programming; conducted Montessori-specific research into parents’ desires and needs when choosing an early childhood education program for their children; and started a new organization — the Montessori Public Policy Initiative — to unite and support the Montessori community in creating an effective advocacy voice.