So Long to a Teaching Superstar

Los Angeles is losing arguably the most famous teacher to ever set foot in a local classroom, Garfield High School’s Jaime Escalante. There are many reasons--some political, some personal--that he’s leaving the East Los Angeles high school he helped make world-famous. But the most important thing about Escalante’s departure is the challenge it poses for the educators he leaves behind.

You would have to be a hermit to not know about Escalante and his impressive work in teaching advanced mathematics to mostly Latino high school students--kids who the conventional wisdom would have us believe are doomed to be underachievers. Escalante’s classroom exploits were not just written about widely enough to earn him attention and well-deserved praise from President Bush; Hollywood even made a hit movie about him and some of his early students, “Stand and Deliver.”

Such celebrity is usually reserved for superstars in fields far removed from teaching, as important as that profession is. So it was front-page news this week when the math instructor announced that he is leaving Garfield to teach in Sacramento public schools starting next fall. That is a costly, even embarrassing, loss for a public school system that needs all the help it can get.

It had been known for some time that Escalante was less than happy after 17 years at Garfield. He had threatened to resign a few months ago but relented. And the fact that other teachers there were less than enthralled with their famous colleague also became obvious when he was passed over recently in an election for department chairman. Such things happen when egos clash.

Some are saying that Escalante was determined to leave and nothing could have been done to keep him here. Like many fine professionals in other fields, they say, he burned out in the L.A. rat race and is hoping to renew his energies in Northern California. But given the continued challenge that Los Angeles’ schools face in trying to educate an incredibly diverse student population, you would think the educational bureaucrats hereabout--and we don’t mean just school administrators but the folks who run the teachers unions, too--would have done all they could to hang on to a superstar such as Escalante. They didn’t, and that should be at least a little troubling to everyone who cares about public education and wants it to thrive. There are times that the system and the people who work in it seem to be their own worst enemies. It may well look that way this time, unless the teachers at Garfield, and hundreds of other teachers citywide, show that they too can stand and deliver.