Jaime Escalante

Jaime Alfonso Escalante Gutiérrez (1930-2010) was a Bolivian-American mathematics teacher renowned for transforming calculus instruction at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, where he taught from 1974 to 1991. Born in La Paz to two teacher parents, Escalante built a rigorous Advanced Placement calculus program among students widely assumed unlikely to attempt it. In 1982 eighteen of his students passed the AP Calculus exam, and by 1987 his program had grown to 83 students passing the AB exam and 12 passing the BC exam. His methods and his insistence that any student could master advanced mathematics through discipline and dedication became the basis for the 1988 film Stand and Deliver, in which Edward James Olmos portrayed him.