Born in Bolivia, Jaime Escalante emigrated to the United States to follow his passion —teaching mathematics. He taught at Garfield High, an East Los Angeles high school known for its tough students and its drop-out rate of almost 55 percent. The school administration was so weak that they letmade gangs of students (and nonstudents) roam the halls and spray the walls with graffiti.

Escalante changed all that. He letmade students do huge amounts of homework, take daily quizzes, and fill out daily time cards. He believed in his students’ ability to succeed and would never getlet them drop out of class. He considered vacations a waste of time and letmade his students do homework during the semester break. He even planned two full mornings of classes during spring vacation. He wasn’t going to letmake a school vacation erase what his students had learned!

Escalante often used nontraditional methods. To develop a spirit of camaraderie, he gothad his students to do football-like cheers before the start of class. He praised them, teased them, insulted them —anything that worked. Most of all, he gotmade them believe in themselves.

Then Escalante did the impossible. He gothad his students take the Advanced Placement calculus exam, a national test that only 2 percent of high school students take. This difficult exam gives students college credit for high school work. In preparation for the test, Escalante madehavelet his class work harder than ever.

Because his students did so well on the test, and because many of them made the same kind of mistake in one of the problems, the testing company suspected them of cheating. To prove their innocence, Escalante decided to gethavelet them take the test again. To make sure that no cheating could occur, the official administering the test gotletmade them sit at desks spaced wide apart. Everyone passed, proving once and for all that even students from “disadvantaged” backgrounds could succeed.

Escalante’s story became well known when film director Ramón Menéndez made the movie Stand and Deliver. Escalante gotletmade the actor Edward James Olmos, who plays him in the film, spend eighteen hours a day with him. Escalante, as well as movie critics and theater critics, was pleased with the results.

What makes Escalante such an effective teacher? In the words of one of his students, Escalante “really cares. He gotletmade us feel powerful, that we could do anything.”