Montessori - anyone with any experience?

[vaylor]

I have a 3 year old little girl. I was fortunate enough to be in a circumstance where my wife spent 3 years away from work so that my daughter didn't have to go into day care right away, and had a full-time mom for the first 3 1/2 years of her life. When she was old enough to start pre-school we put her in a Montessori school. The teachers there were very convincing when touting the effectiveness of the Montessori method, and my research didn't turn up too many negative things.

However, when my daughter started attending classes, it seems to me that communications between myself and the staff at the school were shut down - and it is hard getting a 3 year old to tell you objectively how her day in school was. Eventually, a month or so later, my wife and I were called in to a conference where their school councelor informed us that she had concerns that my daughter might be learning impared or even autistic. Testing showed otherwise, but nonetheless, our experience with this school was such that we pulled her out and put her in a NAEYC-certified school instead - and the difference has been striking.

Am I alone in this experience or is this typical of Montessori? Anyone have any information on Montessori schools that I missed before I put her in?

[wunky]

There are variants of Montessori, do you know which kind it was?
Part of what they saw at Montessori could have just been her adjusting to the new social environment. I would also be curious what type of back ground that counselor had.
Plus not all students benefit from the Montessori method, for some it may not do any good at all. There are some studies that NCES has done, but most of it was inconclusive, not sure if any results were ever published.
NCES= National Center for Education Statistics