Jaime Alfonso Escalante Gutierrez was a Bolivian-American educator known for teaching students calculus from 1974 to 1991 at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles.
22 Facts About Jaime Escalante
2.
In 1993, the asteroid 5095 Jaime Escalante was named after him.
3.
Jaime Escalante taught mathematics and physics for 12 years in Bolivia before he immigrated to the United States.
4.
Jaime Escalante worked various jobs while teaching himself English and earning another college degree before eventually returning to the classroom as an educator.
5.
Jaime Escalante eventually changed his mind about returning to work when he found 12 students willing to take an algebra class.
6.
Shortly after Jaime Escalante came to Garfield High School, its accreditation became threatened.
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Jaime Escalante was threatened with dismissal by an assistant principal because he was coming in too early, leaving too late, and failing to get administrative permission to raise funds to pay for his students' Advanced Placement tests.
8.
Jaime Escalante denied extracurricular activities to students who failed to maintain a C average and to new students who failed basic skills tests.
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Jaime Escalante continued to teach at Garfield and instructed his first calculus class in 1978.
10.
Jaime Escalante recruited fellow teacher Ben Jimenez and taught calculus to five students, two of whom passed the AP calculus test.
11.
Jaime Escalante placed a high priority on pressuring his students to pass their math classes, particularly calculus.
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Jaime Escalante rejected the common practice of ranking students from first to last but frequently told his students to press themselves as hard as possible in their assignments.
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In 1982, Jaime Escalante first gained media attention when 18 of his students passed the Advanced Placement Calculus exam.
14.
In 1990, Jaime Escalante worked with the Foundation for Advancements in Science and Education to produce the video series Futures, which won a Peabody Award.
15.
Angelo Villavicencio, one of Jaime Escalante's handpicked instructors, took over the program after Jaime Escalante's departure, teaching the remaining 107 AP students in two classes over the following year.
16.
In 2001, after many years of preparing teenagers for the AP calculus exam, Jaime Escalante returned to his native Bolivia.
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Jaime Escalante lived in his wife's hometown, Cochabamba, and taught at Universidad Privada del Valle.
18.
Jaime Escalante returned to the United States frequently to visit his children.
19.
In early 2010, Jaime Escalante faced financial difficulties from the cost of his cancer treatment.
20.
Jaime Escalante moved to Sacramento, California, to live with his son in the city of Rancho Cordova, where he taught at Hiram Johnson High School.
21.
Jaime Escalante died on March 30,2010, at his son's home, while undergoing treatment for bladder cancer.
22.
Jaime Escalante is buried at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier Lakeside Gardens.