History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Escalante's Dream Undelivered
- 04-02-2010
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By UCLA IDEA Staff
“Jaime’s story became famous. But he represented countless, valiant teachers throughout our country whose great works are known only to the young people whose lives they change.”
--President Barack Obama (California Progress Report)
This week math teacher Jaime Escalante, died. Escalante arguably became the most famous American teacher after inspiring the 1988 film Stand and Deliver. His educational legacy was to demonstrate that all students, regardless of their background, can learn at high levels when they and their teachers bring strong desire and commitment to the classroom.
From 1974 to 1991, Escalante taught math at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. Over time he developed an advanced-placement calculus program for his mostly low-income Mexican American students (Fresno Bee). In 1982, he guided a group of 18 students to take and pass the exam. After this stunning success allegations of cheating, surrounded the students; however, Escalante was vindicated when 12 students retook the exam and passed, some with high marks.
Escalante’s success struck at the core of the “deficit model” for understanding why students of color and poor students, generally, have lower school achievement than white and wealthy students. The deficit model theorized that students who were not white and were poor lacked crucial experiences necessary for success, and therefore high academic expectations were not only unrealistic, but damaging to the students’ self-esteem.
By refusing to accept less from his students because they came from working-class families (Fresno Bee), Escalante was able to see many students take—and pass with remarkably high rates—one of the hardest advanced classes. Thus, the “achievement gap” was shown to be a matter that could be addressed in the classroom and not an inevitable consequence of students’ backgrounds. One thing was apparent: For these results, an effective, passionate and skilled teacher was necessary (Eduflak).
At its peak, Garfield students shone on advanced-placement exams. By 1987, only four high schools nationwide had more students taking and passing the AP calculus exam than Garfield. (Los Angeles Times). That same year more than a quarter of all Mexican American students in the nation who passed the exam were Garfield students (Washington Post).
Over the years, mass media along with some overzealous school reformers have focused on Escalante’s passion and skills to the exclusion of critical resources that all teachers and students require. Basing education policy on teachers’ charisma turns out to be no more productive that basing policy on students’ deficits.
The impressive numbers at Garfield have not held up. State and district policies intervened and eroded many gains; for example, a lack of new classrooms has led to more overcrowding. Also, the inadequate supply of well-prepared teachers in California during the late 1990s and early 2000s made it difficult to hire and retain highly qualified math teachers. Escalante recently told a reporter he was saddened to see Garfield’s math program diminished (NPR).
Many schools today lack the resources and support that Escalante was able to muster at Garfield more than 20 years ago. UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access found that high schools with large populations of Latino, African American and American Indian students were more than twice as likely as majority white and Asian schools to have improperly credentialed teachers in college prep math courses. IDEA’s report also found dramatic differences between these two types of schools in the rates of students enrolling in AP math classes (UCLA IDEA).
Escalante proved that though one person can be inspirational and make a powerful difference, more is needed for permanent impact. History has shown that sustained excellence requires an entire system with shared goals and the conditions necessary to meet those goals.
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