Montessori in the United States

While the name is not trademarked and there is no central authority for the method, the American Montessori Society (AMS) was established in 1960.

By 1915, she had been invited to participate in the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal.

[5] The Montessori-method school resurgence did not occur until after 1960, when Nancy McCormick Rambusch and Margaret Stephenson, who each had worked with Montessori in Europe, separately went to the US.

This conflict was finally settled by the US Patent and Trademark Trial and Appeal Board in its action to refuse to grant exclusive use of the term "Montessori" to any one particular "Montessori" organization, holding that "the term 'Montessori' has a generic and/or descriptive significance.

Many schools offer "mother and child" programs in which parents can learn about Montessori and how to apply the philosophy to their child-rearing practices.

AMI endeavours to safeguard the teaching traditions passed down from Maria Montessori to current teachers (otherwise known as a "guide" or "director/directress") through the use of rigorously trained trainers.

For Montessori schools, various organizations provide quality standards through affiliation, recognition, or membership according to their own particular philosophy, procedures and requirements.

(see www.macte.org) In the 1960s, a growing homeschool movement arose in the United States, due to parental concern about the quality and nature of the government system of free public schools.

[10] No reliable figure exists of the number of homeschoolers using materials or methods borrowed from Montessori.

Public school districts in the U.S. began experimenting with Montessori classrooms in the mid 1970s in Arlington, Virginia; Philadelphia; Reading, Ohio; and San Mateo, California.

With funding support from federal magnet grants and desegregation efforts, that number surpassed 200 by the beginning of the 21st century.

A survey conducted in 1981 collected data from 25 of the approximately 57 school districts nationwide known to have Montessori programs at the time of this study.

[16] The article discussed the increasing number of Montessori public school programs, particularly in African-American communities.