Educator tells schools to stop using her name

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ^ | July 21, 2002 | FELICIA THOMAS-LYNN

[Darkshadow]

Educator tells schools to stop using her name

Mediocrity won't be tolerated, Collins says; educators say she wants money

By FELICIA THOMAS-LYNN
of the Journal Sentinel staff

Last Updated: July 21, 2002

Marva Collins - the educator who made a national reputation from Chicago by not giving up on children others thought couldn't be educated - is demanding that dozens of schools bearing her name or using her methods "cease and desist" or face lawsuits.

Marva Collins

Photo/Elizabeth Flores

Marva Collins trains teachers at Marva Collins Preparatory School in Milwaukee this month. She and the school are on good terms, but she is taking on some others that use her name or methods.

Schools React

Yolanda Jackson-Lewis, principal of Kenosha's Wilson Elementary School: "We were not able to keep up with paying for Marva's name. It was a lot of money."
Cleaster Mims, founder, director and administrator at the Marva Collins Preparatory School in Cincinnati: "If she wants to sue, she can go ahead. I will just sit here until she comes to get me. I'm not budging. . . . It has always been about money."

Special Report

Marva Collins: Head of the Class (2/21/99)

Collins said her name is now being misused and associated with "mediocrity," and she's demanding that 30 schools - including ones in Kenosha and Cincinnati - remove her name and stop using her method because of their poor academic performances.

"There are schools all across the country that are purporting to use my name," Collins said. "They have no right. Many of these people I haven't heard of. I want them to remove my name and pursue their own mediocrity."

But officials at two schools contacted said it hasn't been a question of excellence, but one of money. They say Collins charges "exorbitant" license fees to use her name and teaching methods - fees they could no longer afford.

The Marva Collins Preparatory School in Chicago, formerly Westside Preparatory School, was founded by her in 1975 and later named for her. It and the school in Milwaukee, Collins said, are the only ones that meet with her approval. Her daughter runs the Chicago school.

Teaching career began in 1959

Collins, who grew up in Atmore, Ala., and began her teaching career in that state at age 18, relocated to Chicago in 1959 and taught in the public school system there for 14 years. She parted ways with the Chicago district when "I wouldn't label kids with learning disabilities," Collins said. "I knew what humanity could be."

In 1975, she opened her own school on the second level of her home. Her success prompted stories on "60 Minutes," in Newsweek and Time magazines and was the basis of a made-for-television movie that inspired countless educators. Soon, she was receiving hundreds of requests from educators who wanted to duplicate her method at their schools. Some were even named after her.

Collins, who now lives in Hilton Head, S.C., tours the nation and abroad giving speeches and training teachers at schools using her method.

But Collins said that after checking test scores at several of the schools, she discovered that many of them aren't making the grade.

"There has to be excellence. You can't (establish) a Marva Collins school, and I go on the computer and get your test scores and 25% of the children are passing," Collins said. "That's not who I am."

That hasn't always been the case, said Cleaster Mims, founder, director and administrator at the Marva Collins Preparatory School in Cincinnati.

Opened in 1990, it has been described in newspaper accounts as a "miracle school," and it was the first school to bear Collins' name. "She is changing in the middle of the stream," said Mims, adding that she has no intentions of changing the school's name.

"We're incorporated. It would take three years of work to remove her name from all of the paperwork," Mims said. "If she wants to sue, she can go ahead. I will just sit here until she comes to get me. I'm not budging."

Mims, who quit her job as a high school teacher to open the school, said from the beginning that the school was created to educate students who were deemed unteachable. Excellence, Mims said, is a byproduct.

"Our relationship went sour when I couldn't continue to pay large sums of money," said Mims, adding that the school paid Collins $4,000 per year, the first few years.

"It has always been about money. I would have to pay for her hotels. Whenever she wanted to come, she expected me to pay large sums of money," she said. "It has really, truly been a financial burden because I'm private and because I'm depending on tuition from poor people."

Mims said, "It was about 1993 or 1994 when I told her I would not do it any longer. I'm so sorry this has to happen. In our community, we have so few role models. I've just held all of this in. I haven't breathed anything about it."

Yolanda Jackson-Lewis, principal of Kenosha's Wilson Elementary School, told a similar story. The school, she said, incorporated under the Marva Collins name in 1998 after extensive training of the school's teachers by Collins in Chicago and continued consultation by the educator's staff.

"We are a school that is progressing and improving, as far as academic performance. Mrs. Collins knew the level of performance at our school when we first took on the program," said Jackson-Lewis, adding that she was contacted by Collins earlier this year and understood that the school could no longer use the name because it wasn't able to afford the license fee.

"We were not able to keep up with paying for Marva's name. It was a lot of money," Jackson-Lewis said.

Wilson is part of the Kenosha Unified School District, and district officials say the school was charged more than $150,000 over the three years it used the name.

Jackson-Lewis said the school abandoned the name but still uses the method. "We plan to continue using that," she said. "We paid for the training. We have a right to use what we've learned. We purchased audiotapes and videotapes. Just because we go back to look at those tapes doesn't mean that we are breaking the rules."

Collins wants monitoring

But Collins, who declined to discuss specific schools in detail, said the license fee a school pays "depends on the resources a school has" and that using her name and her methods is one and the same.

"You can't buy hamburgers from McDonald's and go out and stick up a franchise. You have to pay a licensing fee," she said. "There has to be some monitoring. That's very scary to have your name out there. It puts me in jeopardy."

Robert Rauh, principal of the Marva Collins Preparatory School in Milwaukee, said the school has had nothing but a positive relationship with Collins.

The choice school, which opened in 1997 as a Marva Collins school, will be a charter school this fall.

"We definitely want to have her name on the school, and we are doing everything to make sure we're doing it right. Part of that is training of new staff and refresher courses for veteran staff," Rauh said.

Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on July 22, 2002.

[Notforprophet]

My gosh that is one fugly teacher!

[scholar]

"We were not able to keep up with paying for Marva's name.

So take Marva's name off your school and carry on--you haven't lost a thing other than capitalizing off her fine reputation.