Do Calculus Instructor’s Methods Add Up to Racism? : Education: His unorthodox style has helped motivate minority students to excel. The school district is investigating accusations of classroom misconduct. Many students have come to his defense.

A calculus teacher at Manual Arts High School who has shown remarkable success in motivating minority students to excel in math is under investigation by the Los Angeles Unified School District for allegedly making threatening and racist comments in class.

Jim Horseman founded the school’s calculus program with five students in 1986 and built it up this year to 30, plus eight seniors who take advanced calculus at USC. He could be transferred or suspended if the allegations against him are upheld, Manual Arts officials said.

The controversy focuses on the unorthodox methods used by Horseman to challenge students at Manual Arts, located near the gang-blighted, low-income area by USC. Officials at the school say it also raises questions about how far teachers should go in pursuit of success when traditional teaching methods fail.

Horseman, who dropped out of a doctoral program in economics to teach in the inner city, styles himself as the Jaime Escalante of South-Central Los Angeles. Escalante is the celebrated math teacher from East Los Angeles whose success in teaching calculus to Latino youths was portrayed in the 1988 movie “Stand and Deliver.”

By all accounts, Horseman uses reverse psychology to motivate students at Manual Arts, which has a student body that is 70% Latino and about 30% black. Last year, 17 of his students passed the calculus test necessary to get advanced placement in college, a feat unmatched by any other department at Manual Arts.

“He’s obnoxious sometimes,” concedes Virginia Ford, coordinator of the magnet program for gifted students at Manual Arts. “He tries to get kids moving by . . . sarcasm and he makes them work. And when you have a teacher demanding two hours of work each night, others (teachers) get upset.”

Others say Horseman has alienated faculty members and students with what they say is his arrogance and elitism. They say Horseman’s pupils are high achievers who would do well regardless of whose class they took.

“It’s not like he took kids who were getting Fs in math and turned them into calculus students,” says math teacher Phyllis Williams, who is also a teachers’ union representative at Manual Arts.

Problems came to a head last month when two black students claimed that Horseman, who is white, made racist remarks in class concerning the math ability of blacks. One of the teen-agers, Kim Johnson, who is president of the student body, transferred out of Horseman’s class and lodged protests with the administration.

“Instead of motivating students, he lowers their self-esteem,” contends Johnson, 17, who says she is one of four black students who have complained about Horseman. “It’s insulting.”

Horseman also has many student supporters, who have written about 100 letters in the past two weeks voicing their approval of his teaching methods, school officials said. One Horseman fan is 17-year-old Jermaine Clare, who has been in his class for two years and takes advanced calculus at USC.

“He makes you feel you’ve accomplished something,” said Clare. “He does it in a positive way, not insulting. . . . He says how we’re minorities and we have to work twice as hard because of the community that we’re in.”

School and district officials decline to discuss their investigation or to elaborate on the remarks that Horseman is alleged to have made.

“It’s a very hot issue,” said Robert Barner, Manual Arts’ assistant principal. “If Horseman has done nothing wrong, I’d like to see him stay here. If he’s done anything that’s wrong, he should be responsible for his actions.”

The controversy comes at a time when Manual Arts officials are trying to stress the positive at the sprawling, pink stucco high school on Vermont Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard.

It has also underscored concerns that disproportionately few black students nationally enroll in advanced math classes. As a result, some Manual Arts teachers say they should be especially sensitive in encouraging blacks to succeed.

“There are not that many black students who have had success in his class, for whatever reason,” said fellow math teacher Williams. “What is being done to ensure that black students are not written off?”

“It’s a concern that all of us have, that blacks are still not achieving,” said Ford, the magnet school coordinator.

Ford, a Horseman ally, also worries that her advanced placement calculus program, aimed at getting students advancement credit in college, will collapse if Horseman is transferred. She says the allegations of racism have been blown out of proportion and have been exacerbated by Horseman.

Horseman is an iconoclast who feuds openly with United Teachers-Los Angeles, the teachers’ union, which he does not belong to. Twice, he has crossed picket lines during strikes.

Horseman denies making any racist or otherwise inappropriate comments. He does not hesitate to boast about his success in turning poor and minority students into math whizzes.

“Anyone can explain math problems,” said the tall, gangly math teacher. “The entire key to success in learning is motivation, to get them to want to learn.”

Horseman hands out his home number. He drills students at break, lunch, after school and on Saturdays, especially in the months before the advanced placement math tests. Students who arrive late for the extra sessions have to do push-ups. Horseman says he often joins in with his own push-ups to keep them company. He adds that this method drew fire last year when a female student allegedly broke her arm while doing a push-up.

The son of a truck driver and a waitress--neither finished ninth grade--Horseman grew up with a reverence for learning. For him, education was a ticket to a better world. It is this respect for the power of learning that he tries to instill in his students, Horseman said.

During break last Friday, some of Horseman’s students played chess in the back of the class and discussed how Horseman helped them become high achievers.

“Before I came here, I never thought about going to college, I never dreamed of being in calculus,” said Carlos Gomez, 17, a Manual Arts student enrolled in advanced calculus at USC.

Horseman “is the ultimate motivator, he doesn’t only teach us about calculus but about life and that we shouldn’t settle for the stereotypes about minorities.”

Students said Horseman will often suggest that they cannot do a math problem, then challenge them to prove him wrong.

“He’ll say, ‘You probably couldn’t do this because you’re a woman,’ and anyone who says that to me, I’m going to prove him wrong,” said Diana Camacho, 17. “It doesn’t upset me because he’s not insulting you. You can tell when a person’s insulting you and when a person’s saying it to motivate you.”