Friends, family and former students were yesterday mourning the death of Jaime
Escalante, an eccentric maths teacher from East Los Angeles who transformed a
troubled innercity
school by teaching advanced algebra to disadvantaged teenagers
and inspired the hit film Stand and Deliver.
Mr Escalante died at his son's home near Sacramento, California, after a long battle
with bladder cancer. He was 79. He was thrust into the public eye in 1982, when 14
of his students from Garfield High, one of the toughest schools in one of Los
Angeles' toughest neighbourhoods, passed the Advanced Placement calculus exam,
the US equivalent of an advanced maths Alevel,
with flying colours.
Officials suspected that they had been cheating and, amid howls of institutionalised
racism, forced them to resit the exam, under controlled conditions. Twelve of the 14