Stand and Deliver Teacher Jaime Escalante Dies at 79

Robert Gauthier/ <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-jaime-escalante31-2010mar31,0,7083760.story">LA Times</a>

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Influential American public-school teacher Jaime Escalante proved to everyone that all students, no matter the odds, are capable of mastering hard-core subjects. He proved it by helping hundreds of students pass the rigorous Advanced Placement calculus exam during his tenure at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. Escalante died on Tuesday of bladder cancer at the age of 79.

Escalante “was a reformer before it was cool to be one,” as Eduwonk blogger Andrew Rotherman simply states, and the Washington Post’s Jay Matthews credits Escalante for changing his life and inspiring his desire “to write about schools forever.” Escalante gained national prominence in the wake of a 1982 scandal when 14 of his students were accused of cheating on the A.P. calculus exam. “The story of their eventual triumph—and of Escalante’s battle to raise standards at a struggling campus of working-class, largely Mexican American students—became the subject of the movie, which turned the balding, middle-aged Bolivian immigrant into the most famous teacher in America,” the LA Times reports in his obituary. The popular 80s film Stand and Deliver is based on Escalante and his students.

The LA Times also interviewed Escalante in early March soon after news of his terminal condition became public:

There was a time in East Los Angeles when el maestro’s gruff voice bounced off his classroom walls. He roamed the aisles, he juggled oranges, he dressed in costumes, he punched the air; he called you names, he called your mom, he kicked you out, he lured you in; he danced, he boxed, he screamed, he whispered. He would do anything to get your attention.

Ganas,” he would say. “That’s all you need. The desire to learn.”

 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate