Super Math Teacher Jaime Escalante

Escalante has one humongous, insurmountable problem. He is an educator, and educators are more rare and more threatened than California condors.

Escalante is living proof that the American public may, from a distance, be attracted to the end result of an education, but damn, so few will stand for the process.

Parents don’t want their children making so many “sacrifices,” and few educators are willing to do what Escalante does. This, along with being in an era of “I have my rights.” Educational administrators have succumbed to smoke and mirrors; creating images detached from reality is an end unto itself. Consequently, we usually hear that everything is A-OK and getting better, while more committees are convened to study the studies and write more innocuous reports, more splintering of classes and students, more political posturing, more philosophizing, etc.

Yes, Jaime, parents are not sufficiently supportive of you or their child, teachers are anywhere from indifferent to hostile (you are a threat to their status quo), and administrators are perplexed--they like the notoriety you bring, but fear the inevitable question, “Why aren’t other teachers doing better?”

D.L. CASSATT

La Palma