Edutopia: “A Public School Makes the Case for ‘Montessori for All'”
April 25, 2019 | Photograph courtesy of Edutopia
Edutopia wrote about a Title I public school in rural Latta, South Carolina with a successful Montessori program. The story cites the Riley Institute’s Montessori research that found that public Montessori students in South Carolina outperformed their non-Montessori counterparts on standardized tests and a variety of social and emotional metrics.
“The five miles from Interstate 95 into Latta, South Carolina, amble past fireworks shops and stretches of farmland bordered by matchstick pines and interspersed with the occasional home. Railroad tracks and a lone post office mark the center of town, home to 1,300 people and one elementary school, one middle school, and one high school that serve students in a county nearly 100 miles wide.
In many ways, Latta is no different from other communities scattered throughout the rural South: Jobs are limited, businesses are local, and residents know one another. But the opening of a Title I public Montessori school has put this small town at the forefront of a movement that is upending the status quo around access to progressive education.”