[NM-Science] Jaime Escalante - There are many lessons here!

[Marshall Berman]

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July 2002

Stand and Deliver Revisited
The untold story behind the famous rise -- and shameful fall -- of Jaime 
Escalante, America's master math teacher.
By <mailto:furnes@yahoo.com>Jerry Jesnessd8d6ea.jpg

Thanks to the popular 1988 movie Stand and Deliver, many Americans know of 
the success that Jaime Escalante and his students enjoyed at Garfield High 
School in East Los Angeles. During the 1980s, that exceptional teacher at a 
poor public school built a calculus program rivaled by only a handful of 
exclusive academies.

It is less well-known that Escalante left Garfield after problems with 
colleagues and administrators, and that his calculus program withered in 
his absence. That untold story highlights much that is wrong with public 
schooling in the United States and offers some valuable insights into the 
workings -- and failings -- of our education system.

Escalante's students surprised the nation in 1982, when 18 of them passed 
the Advanced Placement calculus exam. The Educational Testing Service found 
the scores suspect and asked 14 of the passing students to take the test 
again. Twelve agreed to do so (the other two decided they didn't need the 
credit for college), and all 12 did well enough to have their scores 
reinstated.

In the ensuing years, Escalante's calculus program grew phenomenally. In 
1983 both enrollment in his class and the number of students passing the 
A.P. calculus test more than doubled, with 33 taking the exam and 30 
passing it. In 1987, 73 passed the test, and another 12 passed a more 
advanced version ("BC") usually given after the second year of calculus.

By 1990, Escalante's math enrichment program involved over 400 students in 
classes ranging from beginning algebra to advanced calculus. Escalante and 
his fellow teachers referred to their program as "the dynasty," boasting 
that it would someday involve more than 1,000 students.

That goal was never met. In 1991 Escalante decided to leave Garfield. All 
his fellow math enrichment teachers soon left as well. By 1996, the dynasty 
was not even a minor fiefdom. Only seven students passed the regular ("AB") 
test that year, with four passing the BC exam -- 11 students total, down 
from a high of 85.

In any field but education, the combination of such a dramatic rise and 
such a precipitous fall would have invited analysis. If a team begins 
losing after a coach is replaced, sports fans are outraged. The decline of 
Garfield's math program, however, went largely unnoticed.

Movie Magic

Most of us, educators included, learned what we know of Escalante's 
experience from Stand and Deliver. For more than a decade it has been a 
staple in high school classes, college education classes, and faculty 
workshops. Unfortunately, too many students and teachers learned the wrong 
lesson from the movie.

Escalante tells me the film was 90 percent truth and 10 percent drama -- 
but what a difference 10 percent can make. Stand and Deliver shows a group 
of poorly prepared, undisciplined young people who were initially 
struggling with fractions yet managed to move from basic math to calculus 
in just a year. The reality was far different. It took 10 years to bring 
Escalante's program to peak success. He didn't even teach his first 
calculus course until he had been at Garfield for several years. His basic 
math students from his early years were not the same students who later 
passed the A.P. calculus test.

Escalante says he was so discouraged by his students' poor preparation that 
after only two hours in class he called his former employer, the Burroughs 
Corporation, and asked for his old job back. He decided not to return to 
the computer factory after he found a dozen basic math students who were 
willing to take algebra and was able to make arrangements with the 
principal and counselors to accommodate them.

Escalante's situation improved as time went by, but it was not until his 
fifth year at Garfield that he tried to teach calculus. Although he felt 
his students were not adequately prepared, he decided to teach the class 
anyway in the hope that the existence of an A.P. calculus course would 
create the leverage necessary to improve lower-level math classes.

His plan worked. He and a handpicked teacher, Ben Jimenez, taught the 
feeder courses. In 1979 he had only five calculus students, two of whom 
passed the A.P. test. (Escalante had to do some bureaucratic sleight of 
hand to be allowed to teach such a tiny class.) The second year, he had 
nine calculus students, seven of whom passed the test. A year later, 15 
students took the class, and all but one passed. The year after that, 1982, 
was the year of the events depicted in Stand and Deliver.

The Stand and Deliver message, that the touch of a master could bring 
unmotivated students from arithmetic to calculus in a single year, was 
preached in schools throughout the nation. While the film did a great 
service to education by showing what students from disadvantaged 
backgrounds can achieve in demanding classes, the Hollywood fiction had at 
least one negative side effect. By showing students moving from fractions 
to calculus in a single year, it gave the false impression that students 
can neglect their studies for several years and then be redeemed by a few 
months of hard work.

This Hollywood message had a pernicious effect on teacher training. The 
lessons of Escalante's patience and hard work in building his program, 
especially his attention to the classes that fed into calculus, were 
largely ignored in the faculty workshops and college education classes that 
routinely showed Stand and Deliver to their students. To the pedagogues, 
how Escalante succeeded mattered less than the mere fact that he succeeded. 
They were happy to cheer Escalante the icon; they were less interested in 
learning from Escalante the teacher. They were like physicians getting 
excited about a colleague who can cure cancer without wanting to know how 
to replicate the cure.

The Secrets to His Success

How did Escalante attain such success at Garfield? One key factor was the 
support of his principal, Henry Gradillas.

Escalante's program was already in place when Gradillas came to Garfield, 
but the new principal's support allowed it to run smoothly. In the early 
years, Escalante had met with some resistance from the school 
administration. One assistant principal threatened to have him dismissed, 
on the grounds that he was coming in too early (a janitor had complained), 
keeping students too late, and raising funds without permission. Gradillas, 
on the other hand, handed Escalante the keys to the school and gave him 
full control of his program.

Gradillas also worked to create a more serious academic environment at 
Garfield. He reduced the number of basic math classes and eventually came 
up with a requirement that those who take basic math must concurrently take 
algebra. He even braved the wrath of the community by denying 
extracurricular activities to entering students who failed basic skills 
tests and to current students who failed to maintain a C average.

In the process of raising academic standards at Garfield, Gradillas made 
more than a few enemies. He took a sabbatical leave to finish his doctorate 
in 1987, hoping that upon his return he would either be reinstated as 
principal of Garfield or be given a position from which he could help other 
schools foster programs like Escalante's. He was instead assigned to 
supervise asbestos removal. It is probably no coincidence that A.P. 
calculus scores at Garfield peaked in 1987, Gradillas' last year there.

Escalante remained at Garfield for four years after Gradillas' departure. 
Although he does not blame the ensuing administration for his own departure 
from the school, Escalante observes that Gradillas was an academic 
principal, while his replacement was more interested in other things, such 
as football and the marching band.

Gradillas was not the only reason for Escalante's success, of course. Other 
factors included:

The Pipeline. Unlike the students in the movie, the real Garfield students 
required years of solid preparation before they could take calculus. This 
created a problem for Escalante. Garfield was a three-year high school, and 
the junior high schools that fed it offered only basic math. Even if the 
entering sophomores took advanced math every year, there was not enough 
time in their schedules to take geometry, algebra II, math analysis, 
trigonometry, and calculus.

So Escalante established a program at East Los Angeles College where 
students could take these classes in intensive seven-week summer sessions. 
Escalante and Gradillas were also instrumental in getting the feeder 
schools to offer algebra in the eighth and ninth grades.

Inside Garfield, Escalante worked to ratchet up standards in the classes 
that fed into calculus. He taught some of the feeder classes himself, 
assigning others to handpicked teachers with whom he coordinated and 
reviewed lesson plans. By the time he left, there were nine Garfield 
teachers working in his math enrichment program and several teachers from 
other East L.A. high schools working in the summer program at the college.

Tutoring. Years ago, when asked if Garfield could ever catch up to Beverly 
Hills High School, Gradillas responded, "No, but we can get close." The 
children of wealthy, well-educated parents do enjoy advantages in school. 
Escalante did whatever he could to bring some of those advantages to his 
students.

Among the parents of Garfield students, high school graduates were in the 
minority and college graduates were a rarity. To help make up for the lack 
of academic support available at home, Escalante established tutoring 
sessions before and after school. When funds became available, he arranged 
for paid student tutors to help those who fell behind.

Escalante's field-leveling efforts worked. By 1987, Gradillas' prediction 
proved to be partially wrong: In A.P. calculus, Garfield had outpaced 
Beverly High.

Open Enrollment. Escalante did not approve of programs for the gifted, 
academic tracking, or even qualifying examinations. If students wanted to 
take his classes, he let them.

His open-door policy bore fruit. Students who would never have been 
selected for honors classes or programs for the gifted chose to enroll in 
Escalante's math enrichment classes and succeeded there.

Of course, not all of Escalante's students earned fives (the highest score) 
on their A.P. calculus exams, and not all went on to receive scholarships 
from top universities. One argument that educrats make against programs 
like Escalante's is that they are elitist and benefit only a select few.

Conventional pedagogical wisdom holds that the poor, the disadvantaged, and 
the "culturally different" are a fragile lot, and that the academic rigor 
usually found only in elite suburban or private schools would frustrate 
them, crushing their self-esteem. The teachers and administrators that I 
interviewed did not find this to be true of Garfield students.

Wayne Bishop, a professor of mathematics and computer science at California 
State University at Los Angeles, notes that Escalante's top students 
generally did not attend Cal State. Those who scored fours and fives on the 
A.P. calculus tests were at schools like MIT, Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, USC, 
and UCLA. For the most part, Escalante grads who went to Cal State-L.A. 
were those who scored ones and twos, with an occasional three, or those who 
worked hard in algebra and geometry in the hope of getting into calculus 
class but fell short.

Bishop observes that these students usually required no remedial math, and 
that many of them became top students at the college. The moral is that it 
is better to lose in the Olympics than to win in Little League, even for 
those whose parents make less than $20,000 per year.

Death of a Dynasty

Escalante's open admission policy, a major reason for his success, also 
paved the way for his departure. Calculus grew so popular at Garfield that 
classes grew beyond the 35-student limit set by the union contract. Some 
had more than 50 students. Escalante would have preferred to keep the 
classes below the limit had he been able to do so without either denying 
calculus to willing students or using teachers who were not up to his high 
standards. Neither was possible, and the teachers union complained about 
Garfield's class sizes. Rather than compromise, Escalante moved on.

Other problems had been brewing as well. After Stand and Deliver was 
released, Escalante became an overnight celebrity. Teachers and other 
interested observers asked to sit in on his classes, and he received visits 
from political leaders and celebrities, including President George H.W. 
Bush and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. This attention aroused feelings of 
jealousy. In his last few years at Garfield, Escalante even received 
threats and hate mail. In 1990 he lost the math department chairmanship, 
the position that had enabled him to direct the pipeline.

A number of people at Garfield still have unkind words for the school's 
most famous instructor. One administrator tells me Escalante wanted too 
much power. Some teachers complained that he was creating two math 
departments, one for his students and another for everyone else. When 
Escalante quit his job at Garfield, John Perez, a vice president of the 
teachers union, said, "Jaime didn't get along with some of the teachers at 
his school. He pretty much was a loner."

In addition, Escalante's relationship with his new principal, Maria Elena 
Tostado, was not as good as the one he had enjoyed with Gradillas. Tostado 
speaks harshly about her former calculus teachers, telling the Los Angeles 
Times they're disgruntled former employees. Of their complaints, she said, 
"Such backbiting only hurts the kids."

Escalante left the program in the charge of a handpicked successor, fellow 
Garfield teacher Angelo Villavicencio. Escalante had met Villavicencio six 
years previously through his students -- he had been a math teacher at 
Griffith Junior High, a Garfield feeder. At Escalante's request and with 
Gradillas' assistance, Villavicencio came to Garfield in 1985. At first he 
taught the classes that fed into calculus; later, he joined Escalante and 
Ben Jimenez in teaching calculus itself.

When Escalante and Jimenez left in 1991, Villavicencio ascended to 
Garfield's calculus throne. The following year he taught all of Garfield's 
AB calculus students -- 107 of them, in two sections. Although that year's 
passing rate was not as high as it had been in previous years, it was still 
impressive, particularly considering that two-thirds of the calculus 
teachers had recently left and that Villavicencio was working with 
lecture-size classes. Seventy-six of his students went on to take the A.P. 
exam, and 47 passed.

That year was not easy for Villavicencio. The class-size problem that led 
to Escalante's departure had not been resolved. Villavicencio asked the 
administration to add a third section of calculus so he could get his class 
sizes below 40, but his request was denied. The principal attempted to 
remove him from Music Hall 1, the only room in the school that could 
comfortably accommodate 55 students. Villavicencio asked himself, "Am I 
going to have a heart attack defending the program?" The following spring 
he followed Escalante out Garfield's door.

Scattered Legacy

When Cal State's Wayne Bishop called Garfield to ask about the status of 
the school's post-Escalante A.P. calculus program, he was told, "We were 
doing fine before Mr. Escalante left, and we're doing fine after." Soon 
Garfield discovered how critical Escalante's presence had been. Within a 
few years, Garfield experienced a sevenfold drop in the number of A.P. 
calculus students passing their exams. (That said, A.P. participation at 
Garfield is still much, much higher than at most similar schools. In May of 
2000, 722 Garfield students took Advanced Placement tests, and 44 percent 
passed.)

Escalante moved north to Sacramento, where he taught math, including one 
section of calculus, at Hiram Johnson High School. He calls his experience 
there a partial success. In 1991, the year before he began, only six 
Johnson students took the A.P. calculus exam, all of whom passed. Three 
years later, the number passing was up to 18 -- a respectable improvement, 
but no dynasty. It had taken Escalante over a decade to build Garfield's 
program. Already in his 60s when he made his move, he did not have a decade 
to build another powerhouse in new territory.

Meanwhile, Villavicencio moved to Chino, a suburb east of Los Angeles. He 
had to take a pay cut of more than $7,000, since his new school would pay 
him for only six of his 13 years in teaching. (Like many districts, the 
Chino Valley Unified School District had a policy of paying for only a 
limited number of years of outside experience.) In Chino, Villavicencio 
again taught A.P. calculus, first in Ayala High School and later in Don 
Lugo High School.

In 1996 he contacted Garfield's new principal, Tony Garcia, and offered to 
come back to help revive the moribund calculus program. He was politely 
refused, so he stayed at Don Lugo. Villavicencio worked with East Los 
Angeles College to establish a branch of the Escalante summer school 
program there. This program, along with more math offerings in the 
district's middle schools, allowed Villavicencio to admit even some 
ninth-graders into his calculus class.

After Villavicencio got his program running smoothly, it was consistently 
producing A.P. calculus passing scores in the 60 percent to 70 percent 
range. Buoyed by his success, he requested that his salary be raised to 
reflect his experience. His request was denied, so he decided to move on to 
another school. Before he left, Don Lugo High was preparing to offer five 
sections of AB calculus and one section of BC. In his absence, there were 
only two sections of AB and no BC.

Meanwhile, after seeing its calculus passing rate drop into the single 
digits, Garfield is experiencing a partial recovery. In the spring of 2001, 
17 Garfield students passed the AB calculus exam, and seven passed the BC. 
That is better than double the number of students passing a few years ago 
but less than one-third the number passing during the glory years of 
Escalante's dynasty.

And after withering in the absence of its founder, the Escalante program at 
East Los Angeles College has revived. Program administrator Paul Powers 
reports that over 1,000 high school students took accelerated math classes 
through the college in the year 2000.

Although the program now accepts students from beyond the college's 
vicinity, the target pupils are still those living in East L.A.

Nationally, there is no denying that the Escalante experience was a factor 
in the growth of Advanced Placement courses during the last decade and a 
half. The number of schools that offer A.P. classes has more than doubled 
since 1983, and the number of A.P. tests taken has increased almost 
sixfold. This is a far cry from the Zeitgeist of two decades ago, when A.P. 
was considered appropriate only for students in elite private and wealthy 
suburban public schools.

Still, there is no inner-city school anywhere in the United States with a 
calculus program anything like Escalante's in the '80s. A very successful 
program rapidly collapsed, leaving only fragments behind.

This leaves would-be school reformers with a set of uncomfortable 
questions. Why couldn't Escalante run his classes in peace? Why were 
administrators allowed to get in his way? Why was the union imposing its 
"help" on someone who hadn't requested it? Could Escalante's program have 
been saved if, as Gradillas now muses, Garfield had become a charter 
school? What is wrong with a system that values working well with others 
more highly than effectiveness?

Barn Building

Lyndon Johnson said it takes a master carpenter to build a barn, but any 
jackass can kick one down. In retrospect, it's fortunate that Escalante's 
program survived as long as it did. Had Garfield's counselors refused to 
let a handful of basic math students take algebra back in 1974, or had the 
janitor who objected to Escalante's early-bird ways been more influential, 
America's greatest math teacher might just now be retiring from Unisys.

Gradillas has an explanation for the decline of A.P. calculus at Garfield: 
Escalante and Villavicencio were not allowed to run the program they had 
created on their own terms. In his phrase, the teachers no longer "owned" 
their program. He's speaking metaphorically, but there's something to be 
said for taking him literally.

In the real world, those who provide a service can usually find a way to 
get it to those who want it, even if their current employer disapproves. If 
someone feels that he can build a better mousetrap than his employer wants 
to make, he can find a way to make it, market it, and perhaps put his 
former boss out of business. Public school teachers lack that option.

There are very few ways to compete for education dollars without being part 
of the government school system. If that system is inflexible, sooner or 
later even excellent programs will run into obstacles.

Escalante has retired to his native Bolivia. He is living in his wife's 
hometown and teaching part time at the local university. He returns to the 
United States frequently to visit his children. When I spoke to him he was 
entertaining the possibility of acting as an adviser to the Bush 
administration. Given what he achieved, he clearly has valuable advice to give.

Whether the administration will take it is another question. We are being 
primed for another round of "education reform." One-size-fits-all 
standardized tests are driving curricula, and top-down reforms are 
mandating lockstep procedures for classroom instructors. These steps might 
help make dismal teachers into mediocre ones, but what will they do to 
brilliant mavericks like Escalante?

Before passing another law or setting another policy, our reformers should 
take a close look at what Jaime Escalante did -- and at what was done to him.
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Jerry Jesness is a special education teacher in Texas' Lower Rio Grande Valley.
http://reason.com/0207/fe.jj.stand.shtml

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<html>
<body>
<div align="right">July 2002 <br><br>
</div>
<b><i>Stand and Deliver </i>Revisited<br>
The untold story behind the famous rise -- and shameful fall -- of Jaime
Escalante, America's master math teacher.<br>
</b>By <a href="mailto:furnes@yahoo.com">Jerry
Jesness</a><img src="cid:5.2.0.9.0.20021125104543.03ee5bc0@earthlink.net.2" width=1 height=1 alt="d8d6ea.jpg"><br><br>
Thanks to the popular 1988 movie <i>Stand and Deliver</i>, many Americans
know of the success that Jaime Escalante and his students enjoyed at
Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. During the 1980s, that
exceptional teacher at a poor public school built a calculus program
rivaled by only a handful of exclusive academies.<br><br>
It is less well-known that Escalante left Garfield after problems with
colleagues and administrators, and that his calculus program withered in
his absence. That untold story highlights much that is wrong with public
schooling in the United States and offers some valuable insights into the
workings -- and failings -- of our education system.<br><br>
Escalante's students surprised the nation in 1982, when 18 of them passed
the Advanced Placement calculus exam. The Educational Testing Service
found the scores suspect and asked 14 of the passing students to take the
test again. Twelve agreed to do so (the other two decided they didn't
need the credit for college), and all 12 did well enough to have their
scores reinstated.<br><br>
In the ensuing years, Escalante's calculus program grew phenomenally. In
1983 both enrollment in his class and the number of students passing the
A.P. calculus test more than doubled, with 33 taking the exam and 30
passing it. In 1987, 73 passed the test, and another 12 passed a more
advanced version (&quot;BC&quot;) usually given after the second year of
calculus. <br><br>
By 1990, Escalante's math enrichment program involved over 400 students
in classes ranging from beginning algebra to advanced calculus. Escalante
and his fellow teachers referred to their program as &quot;the
dynasty,&quot; boasting that it would someday involve more than 1,000
students.<br><br>
That goal was never met. In 1991 Escalante decided to leave Garfield. All
his fellow math enrichment teachers soon left as well. By 1996, the
dynasty was not even a minor fiefdom. Only seven students passed the
regular (&quot;AB&quot;) test that year, with four passing the BC exam --
11 students total, down from a high of 85. <br><br>
In any field but education, the combination of such a dramatic rise and
such a precipitous fall would have invited analysis. If a team begins
losing after a coach is replaced, sports fans are outraged. The decline
of Garfield's math program, however, went largely unnoticed.<br><br>
<b>Movie Magic<br><br>
</b>Most of us, educators included, learned what we know of Escalante's
experience from <i>Stand and Deliver</i>. For more than a decade it has
been a staple in high school classes, college education classes, and
faculty workshops. Unfortunately, too many students and teachers learned
the wrong lesson from the movie.<br><br>
Escalante tells me the film was 90 percent truth and 10 percent drama --
but what a difference 10 percent can make. <i>Stand and Deliver</i> shows
a group of poorly prepared, undisciplined young people who were initially
struggling with fractions yet managed to move from basic math to calculus
in just a year. The reality was far different. It took 10 years to bring
Escalante's program to peak success. He didn't even teach his first
calculus course until he had been at Garfield for several years. His
basic math students from his early years were not the same students who
later passed the A.P. calculus test. <br><br>
Escalante says he was so discouraged by his students' poor preparation
that after only two hours in class he called his former employer, the
Burroughs Corporation, and asked for his old job back. He decided not to
return to the computer factory after he found a dozen basic math students
who were willing to take algebra and was able to make arrangements with
the principal and counselors to accommodate them.<br><br>
Escalante's situation improved as time went by, but it was not until his
fifth year at Garfield that he tried to teach calculus. Although he felt
his students were not adequately prepared, he decided to teach the class
anyway in the hope that the existence of an A.P. calculus course would
create the leverage necessary to improve lower-level math
classes.<br><br>
His plan worked. He and a handpicked teacher, Ben Jimenez, taught the
feeder courses. In 1979 he had only five calculus students, two of whom
passed the A.P. test. (Escalante had to do some bureaucratic sleight of
hand to be allowed to teach such a tiny class.) The second year, he had
nine calculus students, seven of whom passed the test. A year later, 15
students took the class, and all but one passed. The year after that,
1982, was the year of the events depicted in <i>Stand and
Deliver</i>.<br><br>
The <i>Stand and Deliver </i>message, that the touch of a master could
bring unmotivated students from arithmetic to calculus in a single year,
was preached in schools throughout the nation. While the film did a great
service to education by showing what students from disadvantaged
backgrounds can achieve in demanding classes, the Hollywood fiction had
at least one negative side effect. By showing students moving from
fractions to calculus in a single year, it gave the false impression that
students can neglect their studies for several years and then be redeemed
by a few months of hard work.<br><br>
This Hollywood message had a pernicious effect on teacher training. The
lessons of Escalante's patience and hard work in building his program,
especially his attention to the classes that fed into calculus, were
largely ignored in the faculty workshops and college education classes
that routinely showed <i>Stand and Deliver</i> to their students. To the
pedagogues, how Escalante succeeded mattered less than the mere fact that
he succeeded. They were happy to cheer Escalante the icon; they were less
interested in learning from Escalante the teacher. They were like
physicians getting excited about a colleague who can cure cancer without
wanting to know how to replicate the cure.<br><br>
<b>The Secrets to His Success<br><br>
</b>How did Escalante attain such success at Garfield? One key factor was
the support of his principal, Henry Gradillas.<br><br>
Escalante's program was already in place when Gradillas came to Garfield,
but the new principal's support allowed it to run smoothly. In the early
years, Escalante had met with some resistance from the school
administration. One assistant principal threatened to have him dismissed,
on the grounds that he was coming in too early (a janitor had
complained), keeping students too late, and raising funds without
permission. Gradillas, on the other hand, handed Escalante the keys to
the school and gave him full control of his program.<br><br>
Gradillas also worked to create a more serious academic environment at
Garfield. He reduced the number of basic math classes and eventually came
up with a requirement that those who take basic math must concurrently
take algebra. He even braved the wrath of the community by denying
extracurricular activities to entering students who failed basic skills
tests and to current students who failed to maintain a C
average.<br><br>
In the process of raising academic standards at Garfield, Gradillas made
more than a few enemies. He took a sabbatical leave to finish his
doctorate in 1987, hoping that upon his return he would either be
reinstated as principal of Garfield or be given a position from which he
could help other schools foster programs like Escalante's. He was instead
assigned to supervise asbestos removal. It is probably no coincidence
that A.P. calculus scores at Garfield peaked in 1987, Gradillas' last
year there.<br><br>
Escalante remained at Garfield for four years after Gradillas' departure.
Although he does not blame the ensuing administration for his own
departure from the school, Escalante observes that Gradillas was an
academic principal, while his replacement was more interested in other
things, such as football and the marching band.<br><br>
Gradillas was not the only reason for Escalante's success, of course.
Other factors included:<br><br>
<i>The Pipeline</i>. Unlike the students in the movie, the real Garfield
students required years of solid preparation before they could take
calculus. This created a problem for Escalante. Garfield was a three-year
high school, and the junior high schools that fed it offered only basic
math. Even if the entering sophomores took advanced math every year,
there was not enough time in their schedules to take geometry, algebra
II, math analysis, trigonometry, and calculus.<br><br>
So Escalante established a program at East Los Angeles College where
students could take these classes in intensive seven-week summer
sessions. Escalante and Gradillas were also instrumental in getting the
feeder schools to offer algebra in the eighth and ninth grades.<br><br>
Inside Garfield, Escalante worked to ratchet up standards in the classes
that fed into calculus. He taught some of the feeder classes himself,
assigning others to handpicked teachers with whom he coordinated and
reviewed lesson plans. By the time he left, there were nine Garfield
teachers working in his math enrichment program and several teachers from
other East L.A. high schools working in the summer program at the
college. <br><br>
<i>Tutoring</i>. Years ago, when asked if Garfield could ever catch up to
Beverly Hills High School, Gradillas responded, &quot;No, but we can get
close.&quot; The children of wealthy, well-educated parents do enjoy
advantages in school. Escalante did whatever he could to bring some of
those advantages to his students.<br><br>
Among the parents of Garfield students, high school graduates were in the
minority and college graduates were a rarity. To help make up for the
lack of academic support available at home, Escalante established
tutoring sessions before and after school. When funds became available,
he arranged for paid student tutors to help those who fell
behind.<br><br>
Escalante's field-leveling efforts worked. By 1987, Gradillas' prediction
proved to be partially wrong: In A.P. calculus, Garfield had outpaced
Beverly High.<br><br>
<i>Open Enrollment</i>. Escalante did not approve of programs for the
gifted, academic tracking, or even qualifying examinations. If students
wanted to take his classes, he let them.<br><br>
His open-door policy bore fruit. Students who would never have been
selected for honors classes or programs for the gifted chose to enroll in
Escalante's math enrichment classes and succeeded there.<br><br>
Of course, not all of Escalante's students earned fives (the highest
score) on their A.P. calculus exams, and not all went on to receive
scholarships from top universities. One argument that educrats make
against programs like Escalante's is that they are elitist and benefit
only a select few. <br><br>
Conventional pedagogical wisdom holds that the poor, the disadvantaged,
and the &quot;culturally different&quot; are a fragile lot, and that the
academic rigor usually found only in elite suburban or private schools
would frustrate them, crushing their self-esteem. The teachers and
administrators that I interviewed did not find this to be true of
Garfield students.<br><br>
Wayne Bishop, a professor of mathematics and computer science at
California State University at Los Angeles, notes that Escalante's top
students generally did not attend Cal State. Those who scored fours and
fives on the A.P. calculus tests were at schools like MIT, Harvard, Yale,
Berkeley, USC, and UCLA. For the most part, Escalante grads who went to
Cal State-L.A. were those who scored ones and twos, with an occasional
three, or those who worked hard in algebra and geometry in the hope of
getting into calculus class but fell short.<br><br>
Bishop observes that these students usually required no remedial math,
and that many of them became top students at the college. The moral is
that it is better to lose in the Olympics than to win in Little League,
even for those whose parents make less than $20,000 per year.<br><br>
<b>Death of a Dynasty<br><br>
</b>Escalante's open admission policy, a major reason for his success,
also paved the way for his departure. Calculus grew so popular at
Garfield that classes grew beyond the 35-student limit set by the union
contract. Some had more than 50 students. Escalante would have preferred
to keep the classes below the limit had he been able to do so without
either denying calculus to willing students or using teachers who were
not up to his high standards. Neither was possible, and the teachers
union complained about Garfield's class sizes. Rather than compromise,
Escalante moved on.<br><br>
Other problems had been brewing as well. After <i>Stand and Deliver</i>
was released, Escalante became an overnight celebrity. Teachers and other
interested observers asked to sit in on his classes, and he received
visits from political leaders and celebrities, including President George
H.W. Bush and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. This attention aroused
feelings of jealousy. In his last few years at Garfield, Escalante even
received threats and hate mail. In 1990 he lost the math department
chairmanship, the position that had enabled him to direct the
pipeline.<br><br>
A number of people at Garfield still have unkind words for the school's
most famous instructor. One administrator tells me Escalante wanted too
much power. Some teachers complained that he was creating two math
departments, one for his students and another for everyone else. When
Escalante quit his job at Garfield, John Perez, a vice president of the
teachers union, said, &quot;Jaime didn't get along with some of the
teachers at his school. He pretty much was a loner.&quot;<br><br>
In addition, Escalante's relationship with his new principal, Maria Elena
Tostado, was not as good as the one he had enjoyed with Gradillas.
Tostado speaks harshly about her former calculus teachers, telling the
Los Angeles Times they're disgruntled former employees. Of their
complaints, she said, &quot;Such backbiting only hurts the
kids.&quot;<br><br>
Escalante left the program in the charge of a handpicked successor,
fellow Garfield teacher Angelo Villavicencio. Escalante had met
Villavicencio six years previously through his students -- he had been a
math teacher at Griffith Junior High, a Garfield feeder. At Escalante's
request and with Gradillas' assistance, Villavicencio came to Garfield in
1985. At first he taught the classes that fed into calculus; later, he
joined Escalante and Ben Jimenez in teaching calculus itself.<br><br>
When Escalante and Jimenez left in 1991, Villavicencio ascended to
Garfield's calculus throne. The following year he taught all of
Garfield's AB calculus students -- 107 of them, in two sections. Although
that year's passing rate was not as high as it had been in previous
years, it was still impressive, particularly considering that two-thirds
of the calculus teachers had recently left and that Villavicencio was
working with lecture-size classes. Seventy-six of his students went on to
take the A.P. exam, and 47 passed.<br><br>
That year was not easy for Villavicencio. The class-size problem that led
to Escalante's departure had not been resolved. Villavicencio asked the
administration to add a third section of calculus so he could get his
class sizes below 40, but his request was denied. The principal attempted
to remove him from Music Hall 1, the only room in the school that could
comfortably accommodate 55 students. Villavicencio asked himself,
&quot;Am I going to have a heart attack defending the program?&quot; The
following spring he followed Escalante out Garfield's door.<br><br>
<b>Scattered Legacy<br><br>
</b>When Cal State's Wayne Bishop called Garfield to ask about the status
of the school's post-Escalante A.P. calculus program, he was told,
&quot;We were doing fine before Mr. Escalante left, and we're doing fine
after.&quot; Soon Garfield discovered how critical Escalante's presence
had been. Within a few years, Garfield experienced a sevenfold drop in
the number of A.P. calculus students passing their exams. (That said,
A.P. participation at Garfield is still much, much higher than at most
similar schools. In May of 2000, 722 Garfield students took Advanced
Placement tests, and 44 percent passed.)<br><br>
Escalante moved north to Sacramento, where he taught math, including one
section of calculus, at Hiram Johnson High School. He calls his
experience there a partial success. In 1991, the year before he began,
only six Johnson students took the A.P. calculus exam, all of whom
passed. Three years later, the number passing was up to 18 -- a
respectable improvement, but no dynasty. It had taken Escalante over a
decade to build Garfield's program. Already in his 60s when he made his
move, he did not have a decade to build another powerhouse in new
territory.<br><br>
Meanwhile, Villavicencio moved to Chino, a suburb east of Los Angeles. He
had to take a pay cut of more than $7,000, since his new school would pay
him for only six of his 13 years in teaching. (Like many districts, the
Chino Valley Unified School District had a policy of paying for only a
limited number of years of outside experience.) In Chino, Villavicencio
again taught A.P. calculus, first in Ayala High School and later in Don
Lugo High School. <br><br>
In 1996 he contacted Garfield's new principal, Tony Garcia, and offered
to come back to help revive the moribund calculus program. He was
politely refused, so he stayed at Don Lugo. Villavicencio worked with
East Los Angeles College to establish a branch of the Escalante summer
school program there. This program, along with more math offerings in the
district's middle schools, allowed Villavicencio to admit even some
ninth-graders into his calculus class. <br><br>
After Villavicencio got his program running smoothly, it was consistently
producing A.P. calculus passing scores in the 60 percent to 70 percent
range. Buoyed by his success, he requested that his salary be raised to
reflect his experience. His request was denied, so he decided to move on
to another school. Before he left, Don Lugo High was preparing to offer
five sections of AB calculus and one section of BC. In his absence, there
were only two sections of AB and no BC.<br><br>
Meanwhile, after seeing its calculus passing rate drop into the single
digits, Garfield is experiencing a partial recovery. In the spring of
2001, 17 Garfield students passed the AB calculus exam, and seven passed
the BC. That is better than double the number of students passing a few
years ago but less than one-third the number passing during the glory
years of Escalante's dynasty.<br><br>
And after withering in the absence of its founder, the Escalante program
at East Los Angeles College has revived. Program administrator Paul
Powers reports that over 1,000 high school students took accelerated math
classes through the college in the year 2000. <br><br>
Although the program now accepts students from beyond the college's
vicinity, the target pupils are still those living in East L.A.<br><br>
Nationally, there is no denying that the Escalante experience was a
factor in the growth of Advanced Placement courses during the last decade
and a half. The number of schools that offer A.P. classes has more than
doubled since 1983, and the number of A.P. tests taken has increased
almost sixfold. This is a far cry from the Zeitgeist of two decades ago,
when A.P. was considered appropriate only for students in elite private
and wealthy suburban public schools.<br><br>
Still, there is no inner-city school anywhere in the United States with a
calculus program anything like Escalante's in the '80s. A very successful
program rapidly collapsed, leaving only fragments behind.<br><br>
This leaves would-be school reformers with a set of uncomfortable
questions. Why couldn't Escalante run his classes in peace? Why were
administrators allowed to get in his way? Why was the union imposing its
&quot;help&quot; on someone who hadn't requested it? Could Escalante's
program have been saved if, as Gradillas now muses, Garfield had become a
charter school? What is wrong with a system that values working well with
others more highly than effectiveness?<br><br>
<b>Barn Building<br><br>
</b>Lyndon Johnson said it takes a master carpenter to build a barn, but
any jackass can kick one down. In retrospect, it's fortunate that
Escalante's program survived as long as it did. Had Garfield's counselors
refused to let a handful of basic math students take algebra back in
1974, or had the janitor who objected to Escalante's early-bird ways been
more influential, America's greatest math teacher might just now be
retiring from Unisys.<br><br>
Gradillas has an explanation for the decline of A.P. calculus at
Garfield: Escalante and Villavicencio were not allowed to run the program
they had created on their own terms. In his phrase, the teachers no
longer &quot;owned&quot; their program. He's speaking metaphorically, but
there's something to be said for taking him literally.<br><br>
In the real world, those who provide a service can usually find a way to
get it to those who want it, even if their current employer disapproves.
If someone feels that he can build a better mousetrap than his employer
wants to make, he can find a way to make it, market it, and perhaps put
his former boss out of business. Public school teachers lack that option.
<br><br>
There are very few ways to compete for education dollars without being
part of the government school system. If that system is inflexible,
sooner or later even excellent programs will run into 
obstacles.<br><br>
Escalante has retired to his native Bolivia. He is living in his wife's
hometown and teaching part time at the local university. He returns to
the United States frequently to visit his children. When I spoke to him
he was entertaining the possibility of acting as an adviser to the Bush
administration. Given what he achieved, he clearly has valuable advice to
give.<br><br>
Whether the administration will take it is another question. We are being
primed for another round of &quot;education reform.&quot;
One-size-fits-all standardized tests are driving curricula, and top-down
reforms are mandating lockstep procedures for classroom instructors.
These steps might help make dismal teachers into mediocre ones, but what
will they do to brilliant mavericks like Escalante?<br><br>
Before passing another law or setting another policy, our reformers
should take a close look at what Jaime Escalante did -- and at what was
done to him. <br>
<img src="cid:5.2.0.9.0.20021125104543.03ee5bc0@earthlink.net.3" width=1 height=1 alt="d8d6f4.jpg"><br><br>
<i>Jerry Jesness is a special education teacher in Texas' Lower Rio
Grande Valley.<br>
<a href="http://reason.com/0207/fe.jj.stand.shtml" eudora="autourl">http://reason.com/0207/fe.jj.stand.shtml</a><br>
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