Marva Collins: the Collins creed

Ebony, Dec, 1996 by Joy Bennett Kinnon

The curriculum at the South Side location adds science and social studies to the classical curriculum initiated at the Westside Preparatory School. A powerful testament to the school is the fact that the eighth grade really doesn't exist. Many of the students test out of eighth grade and continue to high school from the seventh grade. "Some of our students spend two or three years in the seventh and eighth grades just because they are too young to go to high school," he says.

To reach that level of achievement, Collins advises parents of his school-children to monitor television viewing and to talk to their children. "Exposure is one of the best teachers for a child," he says. "That's why children do so poorly on standardized tests. No one talks to them other than that television." Collins and the other teachers try to provide a springboard foundation to give their children that extra advantage. "We're really a family here. We're here for their betterment," he says. "We want them to feel comfortable at their next door neighbor's house and in the White House."

As for his own comfort-level, he's completely at home reporting to mom. "She's mother first, employer second," he says.

Family has always been very important to Marva Collins. For 30 years she was married to Clarence Collins, who helped her to launch the Westside Preparatory School with his moral and financial support and his carpentry skills. The retired draftsman suffered a debilitating stroke in the late 1980s and died in 1995. Collins, who recently married Chicago math teacher George Franklin, has two young grandchildren.

Much in demand as a national speaker, she funnels most of her speaking fees to support her schools. Last year she made $370,000 from her speaking engagements and all but $70,000 went to the school. Collins practices the self-sufficiency she preaches to her students by not accepting federal subsidies. She has even mortgaged her home to support her schools.

"We've never depended on anyone else," Collins says, "because I still believe that Marcus Aurelius was right: `He who eats my bread does my will.' And that still has not changed."

Collins has written two books, and will release next year a motivational book for parents and two children's books. Offered the secretary of education post by both presidents Reagan and Bush, she has resisted the siren song of political office and has remained focused on the children. She also declined a seat on the Chicago School Board and a position as superintendent of Los Angeles County schools.

In 1981, her story was told in a TV special, with Cicely Tyson playing the title role in The Marva Collins Story. In 1982 she found herself and her methods under heavy attack, and more recently she was singled out by critics who claim her methods and--more importantly--her results are too good to be true.

Collins has weathered all of those storms and still prevails. Her schools are flourishing and her children are performing above-grade level. And she would like to just "do good the rest of my life," training teachers, working with students and leaving the day-to-day operations in the capable hands of her children. Content in the words of the creed that her students recite daily: "I will continue to let society predict, but only I can determine what I will, can, or cannot do."