Montessori Charter Advocates Drop Controversial Video

The video merely restates what the MM charter organizers have said in numerous other venues. They have stated repeatedly that public school would be damaging to their children. The entire reason for this charter school is precisely the message in the that video clip.

This backpedaling is about one thing: the desire to redirect public funds to their program. You can’t call yourself a public school while condemning public education. Bit of a pickle, that.

Whitney Smith, in her own words:

“We have looked at our local public elementary and considered sending her there but the school has an API rating of 2 out of 10 and in 2nd grade only 35% of kids are demonstrating proficiency in english and in 4th grade only 50% of kids are proficient in math. DEPRESSING statistics which mean that [child’s name], no matter how talented and smart she is will be impacted by the challenges of this school. And it will not be the child directed learning we have come to see as essential to keep her sparkle and light ALIVE!”

Surprising that the MM organizers are toting a Spanish teacher in every classroom. It certainly doesn’t sound like Ms. Smith wants to send her child to school with English learners. If only Ms. Smith and her community would send their children to the LIVE OAK schools of which district they belong and get involved in those schools. Those schools are ready and waiting (with great teachers and many resources) for them to come and make a difference. In that case they could help more children than just their own!

The real issue here is not the video, but the fact that this charter school will take away resources from the existing schools in Santa Cruz. There are already two great public school options for parents who want a free Montessori-based education for their children (Monarch and Pacific School). Those are wonderful options for any parent who wants an alternative to “conventional schools.”

The school district is facing horrible budget cuts due to the state budget crisis. Since it is already facing huge budget cuts—how could there possibly be money to create a new school right now? This charter will take away resources from all other students in the district. Santa Cruz City and County have a wealth of great public schools, including many alternative programs. This is not the right time to be creating a new school.

Public school = DEPRESSING
Montessori = Sparkle and Light

And we’re not supposed to be offended? This is not Whitney’s mea culpa, this is using the Weekly to spin her story.

Watch for yourself. How could they NOT feel bile rising in their throats or even understand that it will make others feel that way?

The problem is not lack of political savvy. The problem is lack of sensitivity.  The fact that Whitney Smith didn’t GET that this is offensive is a problem.  This is the same reason they continue to push their charter when they have been told repeatedly and in no uncertain terms that this will hurt current SCCS programs. It will take money away from current students and will compete for school site space that is already too overcrowded.  They are insensitive to needs other than their own and cannot see outside their own experience. And they want to start an inclusive school?  I think they have shown they do not have the credentials to be inclusive.

you poor fearful people…..
I really can’t believe how short sighted,self-serving and cruel you people are.
So afraid of a few parents who want to create a new opportunity for children in Santa Cruz. Not one person who has posted an anti comment or picketed or protested has even a small clue about Montessori education. There
I don’t just support a Montessori Charter school in Santa Cruz, I think the School Board should seriously consider adopting Montessori philosophy for the entire school system. If it did, then at least there would be a guiding set of principles for our children instead of whatever hodge-podge of educational principles that has been put in place by politicians over the years.
If there is one thing that Montessori education is known for throughout the world, it is teaching PEACE.
Yes, a Montessori education is an education for PEACE.
How ironic is that here in Santa Cruz you mean spirited people are trying to shoot down a school whose guiding principle is to create peaceful global community minded citizens.
That is why my children all went to Montessori school.
That is why I started a Montessori school in Merced and that is why I brought it to the PUBLIC SCHOOL system and it was embraced.

Realize this….the guy who made that video did not wake up one day and decide to bad mouth public schools.
he made the video based on real world observations.
All of us know that there are both great teachers and kids who thrive in our public schools but that there are also serious problems in our public schools. Kids who are performing above grade level get bored, are not challenged and lose interest. Kids who are below grade level don’t get the support they need and lose self esteem.
One of the key attributes of a Montessori classroom is a 3 year mixed aged classroom.  In this way children of all levels have the opportunity to do work at their own level and feel good about themselves.
Brilliant! a classroom set up and organized to address children’s varying levels of development.
Why DO we expect all first graders or all second graders, etc., to be doing the same level of work?

Why is it that there are tens of thousands of Montessori schools all over the world operating successfully based on a single set of guiding principles? oh, because it works!!!

This all sounds like whining to me…..

Do you hate-filled people really think that the organizers are out “swipe taxpayer dollars?”

Hey guess what? All those parents are Tax-payers to!
And guess what, Taxpayers created the laws that gave people the right to set up publicly funded charter schools.

Mr. Block,
You are right. We all looked at our preschool children and wondered where to send them to school for the best education within our means. And we all wanted to help make that school the best it could be once they got there. But what we did not do, Mr. Block, was decide that it was OK to sacrifice the education of all the children currently attending those schools for the sake of our own children. I, too, smell fear Mr. Block. But it’s not the fear of the people who send their children to our public schools. It is the fear of your charter advocates of sending their children to school with English learners. And to say that we don’t have a clue about Montessori is more than ridiculous. However would you know? You are so wedded to your Montessori ideal that you cannot see that Montessori is not even the issue here. The issue is that a group of parents who are unable (unlike you) to pay for private school and are afraid to send their children to school with the masses (meaning my children and the rest) wants the parents of the masses to subsidize their children’s private education under the guise of a public charter. That Mr. Block MD is the issue. If being against that makes me “mean spirited” and “mean, mean, mean” in your eyes then perhaps you need to see a doctor, Doctor!

You say it yourself..who would choose to send their child to an overcrowded resource limited classroom that you describe.
who wouldn;t look at their beautiful pre-school aged child and try to figure out a way to improve the system?
yes they are thinking of their own children and others in the future, just as you are. The differnence is that you are pushing the status quo and these parents are trying to make the world a better place.

you and your self serving group of mean spirited parents should all be ashamed of yourselves,
mean, mean, mean!!!

Dear Dr. Block,

Many of us are very familiar with Montessori education. My own children had a number of years in Montessori schools. That is precisely why I fully appreciate how “un-Montessori” it is to take away from one group of children to serve another group of children. This is a key principal of the Montessori classroom: your actions should not impinge on another person.

But that is precisely what is happening here. There is one fixed bucket of funds for elementary schools in Santa Cruz. Every dollar to operate a new school must come from the existing schools.

It is mean spirited of these preschool parents to assert that their right to a tuition-free continuation of their private school should be delivered at the expense of other parents’ children.

California public education is in the midst of a staggering funding crisis. There’s plenty to like about Montessori, but this program cannot be launched without grievous damage to our neighborhood schools. Pursuing the Maria Montessor Charter School is a selfish act that directly hurts nearly 2500 children.

As for the benefits of the multi-age classroom, we have offered just such a program for over 30 years. It’s called Monarch.

You do an awful disservice to the parents and teachers in our schools who are delivering a high quality and enriching education under challenging circumstances by demeaning their schools. Perhaps many of these teachers and parents are your patients. Would you speak to them directly this way? How very un-Montessori of you.

I do not think trying to keep precious resources from leaving our district is a “mean spirited” thing for concerned parents to promote.

We are trying to preserve what little we have from an outside- of –the-district power grab by entitled parents.  Seems like that is in our democratic right, no?

You started a Montessori school in Merced?  Did you financially benefit from this school?  Is this merely a business issue for you?  Then you should completely understand the money and the fact that you do not is worrisome.

What is the economic and ethnic diversity in your Merced Montessori school?  Or are you like Stephen Colbert and do not see race?

Really?  You sticking with the “it’s legal” argument?  Dude, How long of a list do you need to see that laws are not always moral? Do you skip history in montessori?

An affluent and entitled group wanting the public to pay for their private school tuition—-which is what this charter proposal is—where does that fit on the moral scale?

Speaking as a Quaker and a pacifist, I don’t find your rhetoric convincingly peaceful, Dr. Block. We parents and teachers who oppose this charter are not ‘depriving’ others of anything concrete and real—the proposed school is an idea and a plan. Our small classes, our art and music classes, our libraries—these are all *real* things that will be de-funded if this charter is approved. We disagree on a question of public policy: whether or not parents should be able to take the dollars allocated by state and local taxes and direct them toward any school they want. The logical outcome of proliferating “public” charter schools (shown in study after study to be less diverse and not necessarily any more effective than neighborhood public schools) is a voucher system. For-profit educational corporations, many of which are behind powerful charter school lobbying efforts, support this. I’m not suggesting that the MMCS effort is such a corporate-backed effort, but you should realize that in jumping on this charter bandwagon you are getting in bed with some deeply un-democratic forces.

And by the way, since you’re not a member of our Santa Cruz community (and have no experience, apparently, of our public neighborhood schools), we couldn’t expect you to know that there’s a lot of attention to a peace curriculum here. Just off the bat I’m thinking about the “Peace Pole” that the children at Bay View made, and the yearly “Noche de Paz” peace celebration that the English Learner Advisory Committee sponsors at DeLaveaga.

Dr. Block, could you post the name of the charter school you founded so that we can judge for ourselves how it’s doing on diversity and access questions? I can’t seem to find any public Montessori schools in Merced via Google. Thank you.

Word to Whitney Smith: You stated to the Weekly that your organization does not disparage our public schools. Yet, right here, in these comments, Dr. Block (the “pediatrician” referred to in your PowerPoint presentation as a founding family) is making the point abundantly clear.

You can remove the offending video from your website, but you cannot unwind the collateral damage already underway at the hands of your own team. It’s too late for that.

You’re making a lot of promises about what your school will and won’t be (and where). But even before this school is launched, you have lost control of the message. It’s not too late however to stop this looming rift in our community that will take away, as Kirsten states “real” things from real kids.

Show some real community spirit and leadership by joining your neighborhood school and make a difference for the children around you.

All of you have only one repetitive concern—that something will be taken from your child or children. Many of you are overtly accusatory of these folks that they are out to take your resources. keep in mind that there is not one of them that has ever had that agenda—I am not arguing that there is limited resources, What impresses me is the venom with which you personally attack people who are simply working to add another option in our community. one that is a.) not limited to any social or economic group of people and b.) may in fact draw kids from the private school into the public sector by offering a well respected educational method.
There are many kids all over Santa Cruz county in Montessori schools. wouldn’t it be nice if we drw them into the public school system?

Where is the tolerance in our community? Where is the open mindedness?

All of you have the same message—a fear of resources being taken away—your agenda is clear.
The problem is that you all make the assumption that the people starting the school have an agenda different than the one they have stated, which is to start a public Montessori school. then after you make an assumption that they have money, or are white, or speak only english, or currently have their kids in private school you attack them for it.
Did you ever think that there are already children from various economic and cultural backgrounds all over this county in Montessori school?

The problem is the intolerance….
The problem is the fear….
Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering…
The parents starting the Montessori school are a varied group and they are not the group spreading hate.

It was a private not for profit school that we gifted to the Merced City Schools.
No money ever changed hands.
The social, economic, and cultural population of the Montessori classrooms in the Merced City schools is exactly the same as the wider community.

We incorporated our school into the City school system so we could offer it to the rest of the community—no other motives.

Do you see how accusatory you are? Do you see how you make assumptions and then attack based on those incorrect assumptions?

why are you attacking me as a person—accusing me of not seeing race? especially if your overriding issue is economic.

It is one thing to have a conversation about education, or about proper use of limited resources, but all of you are going over the edge attacking people based on assumptions you are making about who they are and what their social and economic character is.

It is not about me….I just don’t understand why all of you are so hateful.

Dr. Block, resources are a real issue. It’s not hateful to point out that this proposed school must be funded at the expense of small classes, libraries, arts, music, in our schools.

Since you have created a Montessori school in the past and gifted it to another community, feel free to do the same today. We would embrace this generosity, especially as it would provide choice, but not at the expense of our treasured programs and the children they serve.

Dr. Block – There are more than a dozen Montessori charter schools in California. Not a single one comes close to reflecting their community in terms of the numbers of English-learners and economically disadvantaged students. Not one. These are publicly available statistics.

This, despite many empty promises made throughout the petition process. Time and time again.

Why should you expect us to be happy about the depletion of the precious resources we need to educate all of our children, to benefit a small privileged group, when this is the track record we see – and no indication at all that this school would be different?

How sadly transparent. They removed the video clip not because they don’t wholeheartedly support every single sentiment, but because they caught flak for it. Spend five minutes talking to any MM Charter supporter and the anti-public school talking points begin streaming.

Ironic isn’t it? The charter school needs public school funds to operate their anti-public school program borne out of an utterly misguided fear of extinguishing someone’s “sparkle”—and it all happens at the expense of our public schools, which will suffer mightily. It’s a circle of shame.

Their freedom to swipe taxpayer dollars for a publicly-funded private school comes directly at the expense of our community’s most vulnerable children.

How very anti-Montessori of them.

Golly, there sure are a lot of hate-filled, whiny, mean! mean! mean!, accusatory, close-minded, short-sighted, cruel people out there. Did I miss any other insults leveled by Dr. Block?

Over 550 people are speaking out against this charter school. Just a hunch: they’re not mean. They’re actually your friends and neighbors, doctors, teachers, shop keepers—and they happen to believe in our neighborhood schools.

http://signon.org/sign/save-santa-cruz-schools?source=c.url&r_by=2453921

If you want funding from me provide a school I want my childrent to attend.  My son attended 5 months of traditional public school after being a lifelong montessorian.  It was the worst 5 months of his life and now we drive 45 minutes one way to attend a montessori charter.  This is not a stab at public school, it’s just my experience. If you want my funding, EARN IT.  Overcrowded schools that don’t teach children how to resolve conflict and STILL get funding because people have no other viable choice is NOT WORKING.  I suggest rather than being offended by the Montessori method, schools should try to learn from it.