Chicago

Marva Collins moved to Chicago in 1959. She initially got a job as a substitute teacher before being hired by the Chicago public school system. She taught in the Chicago public school system for fourteen years before opening her own private school, Westside Preparatory School, in 1975 on the second floor of her own home. She used her own pension savings and refused federal funding so she could teach her eighteen students the way that she wanted to. Later in life, Collins returned to the Chicago public school system to oversee schools on probation. She requested to work with the schools with the worst academic records. Her success in turning the schools around is evident because their ratings improved by 85% after less than a year. Reagan and George H.W. Bush both asked Collins to serve as the U.S. Secretary of Education, but she declined because she wanted to stay in the classroom to keep fueling her students’ love for learning. After Westside Preparatory School closed in 2008, Collins relocated to South Carolina to set up programs to educate teachers and administrators on her method. She died on June 24, 2015 at the age of 78.

Honors and Awards

Because of her great impact in the classroom, Marva Collins received over forty honorary degrees and was named one of the Legendary Women of the World in 1982. She was also awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2004. Ronald