Did you know???
- That Montessori teachers in more than a dozen states qualify as Universal Preschool Lead Teachers?
- That in the last 18 months work has been underway in 11 states to create policy that will recognize Montessori credentials as a pathway to state teacher licensure?
- That 7 states have Montessori advocates engaged in conversations to create QIS policy to accommodate quality in Montessori classrooms?
How is so much work happening to create policies that will enable Montessori to grow and to offer the best of who we are to the most children and families? The answer is the Montessori Public Policy Initiative and our team of State Advocacy Groups and their leaders.
MPPI has been at work for more than 12 years, and our network of advocates continues to grow, which means every year more policy change is happening.
MPPI advocates work on a variety of issues, including how Montessori classrooms are considered in state child care licensing regulations, to enable Montessori ECE classrooms to maintain three year mixed age groupings, larger group sizes, and adult:child ratios as examples.
Advocacy work is underway to gain recognition for Montessori credentials in multiple areas and in multiple states. Credential recognition is important within child care regulations, within Quality Improvement Systems, in workforce registries, and in state teacher licensure legislation and rule. Montessori teachers with credentials from MACTE accredited institutions, or from AMI or AMS, should all be recognized for the quality and rigor of their teacher preparation in each of these areas and in every state or tribal jurisdiction.
These are just a few of the policy areas that MPPI and our advocates work in. We offer policy and advocacy education for the Montessori community through our annual conference. This year’s conference, “Uniting Voices, Igniting Change for Montessori” is to be held September 28th and 29th, in Leesburg Virginia. Click for more info! MPPI also offers policy and advocacy professional development through many Montessori conferences. We present annually at the AMS Event, the AMI-USA Experience, the IMC conference, and this year we hope to be back at MEPI, and next year at NCMPS! In addition, we offer Advocacy 101 to anyone who is interested in getting an advocacy group together to have the instruction online, and we will be debuting our new Advocacy 201, which will delve more deeply into how to partner and collaborate with policy makers and include case studies from MPPI work, to be presented at this year’s conference.