Teacher who inspired 'Stand and Deliver' film dies - washingtonpost.com: LOS ANGELES -- Jaime Escalante, the math teacher who transformed a tough East Los Angeles high school and inspired the movie 'Stand and Deliver,' died Tuesday. He was 79.
Escalante died at his son's home near Sacramento, after battling bladder cancer for several years, family friend Keith Miller said.
An immigrant from Bolivia, he transformed Garfield High School by motivating struggling students to excel at advanced math and science. The school had more advanced placement calculus students than all but four other public high schools in the country.
Edward James Olmos played Escalante in the 1988 film based on his story.
"Jaime exposed one of the most dangerous myths of our time - that inner city students can't be expected to perform at the highest levels," Olmos said. "Because of him, that destructive idea has been shattered forever."
