Title: Jaime Escalante Biography - Childhood, Life Achievements & Timeline
Headings: Jaime Escalante
Biography

Jaime Escalante Biography
Quick Facts
Who was Jaime Escalante?
Career
Awards & Achievements
Personal Life & Legacy

Content: He found himself in a challenging situation, teaching mathematics to troubled students in a rundown school known for violence and drugs. Instead of gearing his classes to poorly performing students, he offered to teach them advanced placement calculus and started an advanced mathematics program with a handful of students. In 1982, he came into national spotlight when his largest class till then, consisting of 18 students, took and passed an advanced placement test in calculus. However, the students were accused of cheating in the test to which he responded furiously. He believed the scores had been challenged because they came from Hispanic students at a poor high school. The students were later vindicated when some of them agreed to retake the test and passed a second time. Over the next few years his calculus program continued to grow but he received threats and hate mail from various individuals. By 1990, he lost the chairmanship of the mathematics department. The following year, he left Garfield and got himself a job at the Hiram W. Johnson High School in Sacramento, California. But at the new job he did not seem to find the same level of success he had at his previous post and therefore, he took retirement from teaching in 1998.