Escalante, Jaime, << ay skah LAHN tay, HY may >> (1930-2010), was a Bolivian-born American teacher. Escalante helped poor students he taught at an inner-city high school in East Los Angeles to become excellent mathematics students. The book Escalante: The Best Teacher in America (1988) and the motion picture Stand and Deliver (1988) were based upon Escalante’s story.
Jaime Alfonso Escalante Gutiérrez was born in La Paz, Bolivia, on Dec. 31, 1930. He studied and taught math and physics in Bolivia before coming to the United States in 1963. It took Escalante 11 years to obtain his teaching certificate in the United States.
In 1974, Escalante began working as a math teacher at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. He began a program to teach high-level mathematics to his students. In 1978, he began teaching calculus. By 1982, a number of students who formerly struggled in mathematics had passed a difficult Advanced Placement exam in calculus after studying in Escalante’s program. The program grew, and students continued to do well on the exam. Escalante left Garfield High School in 1991.
In the 1990’s, Escalante continued to teach. He also hosted and helped to develop Futures, a series of television programs on math and science for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), a nonprofit public TV network in the United States. Escalante was awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching in 1998. He was inducted into the National Teachers Hall of Fame in 1999. He died on March 30, 2010, in Roseville, California.
