In January, 2010, the state of Maryland instituted restrictive new licensing regulations on Montessori education, placing schools under the control and authority of certain special interest organizations. Opposing this action, Lee Havis, IMS director, met with government officials to point out the unfair and harmful nature of this type of prejudicial regulation. He offered instead an alternative approach that would resolve this problem by allowing IMS to serve as a validating organization for schools that fall within its unique philosophical context of true natural Montessori teaching.

IMS has consistently opposed Maryland’s long history of special interest Montessori licensing of Montessori Schools. In the 1980’s, for example, IMS filed a federal court law suit and supported legislation to correct this problem. Lee sees the failure of these efforts as the logical result of a long-standing political climate of government control and repression of individual liberty in Maryland and elsewhere in the United States.

Lee points out, however, some recent hopeful signs of change in this political climate as more people become aware of how government control is adversely affecting their own personal lives. He said, “The 2008 elections brought to power government leaders so extreme in their repression of individual liberty that many grassroots patriot groups have been forming in opposition. Their unifying principles are liberty and limited government as spelled out in the original operating documents of the country.”

Lee has been working with these patriot groups by offering guidance for vetting patriot candidates through a Patriot Vetting Committee (PVC). He says, “The PVC offers forms and procedures that lay out a consensus-building approach for vetting patriot candidates in the 2010 elections. This effort adapts my prior work with the Maryland Public Assembly to the current situation. The aim is to create a new political context committed to laws of nature. Within this context, government regulation and laws would readily support the free conduct of true natural Montessori teaching.”

Lee adds, “The 2010 elections will test out the PVC vetting plan to hopefully set in motion the election of patriot leaders in Maryland and elsewhere. As elected leaders, they would then gradually lead government back to its original purpose of protecting and preserving individual liberty as intended by the country’s founding fathers.”
PVC website: http://patriotvoting.com