Super Math Teacher Jaime Escalante
Your editorial “Escalante’s Defeat Amid Triumph” Feb. 23 really sums up the expressed frustration that teachers have had with the educational bureaucracy for years.
Jaime Escalante has been fighting against the windmills like a Don Quixote for years. He has made the impossible dream for the Latinos at Garfield High a reality. Many of them are not quitting school but they are going on to college at a great success rate. Jaime Escalante, I am not jealous of you; I admire you for what you’ve done. You’ve helped to raise the self-image of Latinos all over Los Angeles and all over the United States. But to hear that you may leave teaching saddens me greatly.
I teach four English-as-a-second-language classes at Cleveland High. Every semester I give all my ESL students a big pep talk about finishing high school and going on to college and I use Escalante as my prime example for future success. And still with all this, we are losing all kinds of ESL students who drop out. What am I going to tell them now? That Escalante, who is fed up with administrative bureaucracy, is going to leave teaching or go to another district?
A teachers’ union spokeswoman was quoted as saying, “If a nationally recognized teacher like Escalante is frustrated with the school district imagine what other teachers are feeling.” Let me address that. Jaime is 59 and has been teaching 16 years; I’ve been teaching 37 years and I’m 64. You have to understand that most administrators want to move up in the ranks and hesitate to take risks to support the teachers. The system protects them. Also, the quality of administrators is suspect. I was a head counselor for 10 years and returned to the classroom six years ago, so I have had some experience in that realm. My guess is that 15% of all administrators in L.A. are innovative, skillful, completely supportive of teachers and 85% are inept, mediocre and afraid that they won’t move up the chain of command.
Jaime, I beg of you, don’t leave us. You’ve done so much good; please stay, we need people like you.
ED RASKY
Canoga Park
