Jaime Escalante

Jaime Escalante is a mathematics educator who gained recognition for his work teaching poor minority students calculus at Garfield High School in Los Angeles, CA. The New York Times reports that on March 30, 2010 Escalante lost his fight with bladder cancer in Reno, Nevada, he was 79.http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/30/us/AP-US-Obit-Jaime-Escalante.html?_r=2

Escalante was born in La Paz, Bolivia on December 31, 1930. While in Bolivia, he worked several odd jobs and taught himself English. He left Bolivia in the 1960’s with hopes of a better life in the United States. Taking a job at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, California in 1974, he found himself in a difficult situation: teaching math to difficult students in a school reportedly known for drugs and violence. Reportedly many of his co-workers had labeled the kids as "un-teachable," Escalante made every attempt to reach his pupils and help them to live up to their potential. He formed a program focusing on advanced mathematics with a few students.

His largest class of pupils took and passed an advanced placement test in Calculus in 1982. The testing company withdrew some of the scores because it assumed that the students had cheated. Once Escalante learned what had happened he protested, stating that the students had been disqualified because they were from a poor school and Hispanic. Many of the students retook the test a few months later and passed, showing everyone the company was wrong and they did know the material. It was this story and this man that inspired the film “Stand and Deliver” in 1988.http://www.biography.com/articles/Jaime-Escalante-189368

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