Education Obituary

Obituaries

By Christina A. Samuels & Liana Loewus — July 07, 2015 3 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

It is one of the 26 “lead state partners” that helped develop the standards in collaboration with several national organizations. At least two other states, Kentucky and Maine, have signaled that they would likely vote on adoption this spring.

Marva D. Collins, a legendary educator known for fostering expectations of excellence for children raised in the poor neighborhoods of Chicago, died last week at age 78.

Ms. Collins began her teaching career in Chicago, but soon became disillusioned with the public school system. So she cashed out her $5,000 pension and started her own school, an independent institution called Westside Prep designed to provide rigorous instruction to disadvantaged students.

As the pre-K-8 school grew, so too did Ms. Collins’ fame. In 1981, her story was the subject of a made-for-television movie. Thousands of people visited the school to find out her secret of eliciting high achievement from students who, on paper, would not be expected to succeed.

Ms. Collins caught the attention of President-elect Ronald Reagan’s transition team, but she turned down an offer to become U.S. secretary of education. In 2004, she was awarded a National Humanities Medal.

Westside Prep closed in 2008, as families were unable or unwilling to pay the $5,500 annual tuition. Ms. Collins moved to Hilton Head, S.C., to organize training programs for educators, The New York Times reported.

–Christina A. Samuels

Ronald Thorpe

Ronald Thorpe, the president and CEO of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, died last week after a battle with lung cancer. He was 63.

Mr. Thorpe had led the National Board since 2011, ushering in significant changes designed to increase the profile of the organization’s flagship advanced-certification program and bolster teachers’ professional status nationally. A well-known and energetic presence in the K-12 field, he worked as an education advocate for more than 40 years.

He served as vice president for education at the New York public television station WNET. He also held senior leadership roles at the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Rhode Island Foundation, and the Wallace Foundation.

Early on, Mr. Thorpe worked at Phillips Academy Andover in Massachusetts, first teaching and then serving as assistant to then-headmaster Theodore R. Sizer, a well-known education reform leader whom Mr. Thorpe credited with shaping his views.

When Mr. Thorpe took over as head of the National Board, the organization’s status had been waning for several years. He decreased the cost of certification and made the process more accessible for teachers.

–Liana Heitin

Kent D. Williamson

Kent D. Williamson, a former executive director of the National Council of Teachers of English, died June 7 after a long illness. He was 57.

Mr. Williamson served as head of the 35,000-member organization from 2000 to 2015. As he wrote on the NCTE website in February, he was an “unlikely choice” for the position. He had taught as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Kingdom of Tonga and as a graduate assistant, but was never a K-12 English teacher. Prior to his time at the NCTE, Mr. Williamson had worked as an executive director for the American Dairy Science Association and as a development officer for the University of Tennessee Medical Center.

Under Mr. Williamson’s leadership, the NCTE helped start such initiatives as the online teacher-resource hub ReadWriteThink and the widely celebrated National Day on Writing. He also directed the National Center for Literacy Education, a partnership started in 2011 between the NCTE and more than two dozen groups aimed at supporting teachers of all disciplines with literacy instruction.

–Liana Heitin

A version of this article appeared in the July 08, 2015 edition of Education Week as Obituaries

Events

Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Privacy & Security Webinar
Navigating Cybersecurity: Securing District Documents and Data
Learn how K-12 districts are addressing the challenges of maintaining a secure tech environment, managing documents and data, automating critical processes, and doing it all with limited resources.
Content provided by Softdocs

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Education Briefly Stated: January 17, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read
Education In Their Own Words The Stories That Stuck With Us, 2023 Edition
Our newsroom selected five stories as among the highlights of our work. Here's why.
4 min read
102523 IMSE Reading BS
Adria Malcolm for Education Week
Education Opinion The 10 Most-Read Opinions of 2023
Here are Education Week’s most-read Opinion blog posts and essays of 2023.
2 min read
Collage of lead images for various opinion stories.
F. Sheehan for Education Week / Getty
Education Letter to the Editor EdWeek's Most-Read Letters of 2023
Read the most-read Letters to the Editor of the past year.
1 min read
Illustration of a line of diverse hands holding up speech bubbles in front of a subtle textured newspaper background
iStock/Getty