Goodbye and thank you, Mr. Escalante

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Math Is Hard
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http://www.seattlepi.com/tvguide/417625_tvgif30.html

Jaime Escalante, the math teacher who inspired the 1988 film Stand and Deliver, died Tuesday. He was 79.

Escalante died at his son's home after battling bladder cancer for several years, family friend Keith Miller told The Associated Press.

As a math teacher at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, Escalante completely transformed the school's mathematics curriculum and pushed his struggling students to master advanced math and science courses. At one point, Garfield High School had the fifth-highest number of advanced placement calculus students in the country.
 
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From what I heard after he left that school it quickly make a downward deathspiral back towards being the mess that it is today.
 
aquitaine said:
From what I heard after he left that school it quickly make a downward deathspiral back towards being the mess that it is today.

I'm sure it is a very rough school, but I wouldn't say the work of Escalante was completely lost.

btw, I grew up about ten miles from there.

In 2004, Newsweek ranked Garfield 581st top high school [of ~23,000] in the nation. The rank was based on the number of Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests taken by all students at a school in 2004 divided by the number of graduating seniors.[8]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garfield_High_School_(Los_Angeles_County,_California )

Escalante stopped teaching in 1991.
 
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So sad, I loved that movie BTW. With all the education woes in my state, the thought of what he did comes to mind often. It just goes to prove that one dedicated man can make a huge difference in the lives of kid's who come from tough backgrounds.

Salute, Mr. Escalante...

Rhody...