Time to Stand and Deliver Education Reform: A Tribute to Jaime Escalante

Rachel Sheffield / April 05, 2010

Former East Los Angeles high school teacher, Jaime Escalante, whose exemplary teaching led to the inspiring film Stand and Deliver, passed away last week. As a math teacher at Garfield High School, Escalante was able to motivate inner-city students to achieve top scores on advanced placement calculus. His influence on the school’s math program and its students led to its becoming one of the top public high schools in the country for the number of advanced placement calculus students it produced. Only four other public high schools nationwide could boast greater success. Not even the neighboring, upscale Beverly Hills High outpaced them. Today we would say that Mr. Escalante was closing the achievement gap.

Then why was he ousted as the head of the school’s math department in the early 90s? Andrew Coulson reports in the Wall Street Journal that it was due to the opposition of teacher’s unions. Not wanting to turn students away, Escalante would fill his classroom with upwards of 50 students, whereas the union only allowed 35. However, because his students still excelled it lowered the union’s bargaining power and created resentment. As a result, Escalante left the school. Its math program no longer achieves near the same level of success. (more…)