Marva Delores Collins (née Knight; August 31, 1936 – June 24, 2015) was an American educator. Collins is best known for creating Westside Preparatory School, a widely acclaimed private elementary school in the impoverished Garfield Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, which opened in 1975.

Collins was born in Monroeville, Alabama, to father, Henry Knight, a businessman who owned a funeral home and worked with cattle, and to mother, Bessie Knight (née Nettles). She grew up in Atmore, Alabama, a small town near Mobile, Alabama, during the time of segregation in the American South. When she was young, Collins went to a strict elementary school in a one-room schoolhouse in Atmore, an experience which influenced her later in life. She graduated from Clark College (now known as Clark Atlanta University) in Atlanta, Georgia.

Collins taught school for two years in Alabama, then moved to Chicago in 1959, where she taught as a full–time substitute teacher in inner–city Chicago Public Schools system for fourteen years.

Dismayed at the low levels of learning that she felt some students were experiencing in particular areas, Collins took $5,000 ($25,910 in 2021 dollars) from her own teacher's retirement fund and started a private school on the top floors of the brownstone in the West Garfield Park neighborhood where she lived in 1975.

The school she started was called Westside Preparatory School. Westside Prep became an educational and commercial success. Collins created her low-cost private school specifically for the purpose of teaching low income black children whom Collins felt the Chicago Public School System had mislabeled as being learning disabled. Collins said she had the data to prove that her students were teachable and were able to overcome obstacles of learning via her teaching methods, which she said eliminated behavioral issues and allowed students to flourish.

The one-room schoolhouse of her education influenced her methods. At home her father gave her assignments she believed built her confidence and gave her a sense of responsibility. She felt time spent with students was more valuable than distance-creating audio visual information. Collins and her daughter ran the school for more than 30 years until it closed in 2008 due to lack of sufficient enrollment and funding.

Collins became well-known due to the 1981 TV movie based on her life's work entitled The Marva Collins Story, starring Cicely Tyson and Morgan Freeman. She also appeared on a featured news article on CBS's 60 Minutes. Cicely Tyson, who played Collins in the TV movie, said she spent time with Collins to research for the role. The 60 Minutes feature was inspired by a 1970s article written by Chicago Sun-Times reporter Zay N. Smith about Collins and Westside Prep.

In 1982, Kevin Ross, a 23–year-old Creighton University basketball player, got to his senior year of college without being able to read. With the assistance of a Creighton booster, Ross enrolled in 7th grade at Westside Prep. With private tutoring by Collins, Ross learned how to read and graduated in May 1983. Ross had difficulties continuing his education, but when he had serious troubles, Collins was instrumental in helping him.