'Stand and Deliver' hero Jaime Escalante fighting cancer

Jaime Escalante, the hero of the 1998 factually-based film “Stand and Deliver,” is fighting cancer according to Washington Post reporter Jay Mathews.

Escalante is the famous teacher who took inner city Hispanics and showed the world that they could indeed master calculus if they had a teacher who knew his stuff and cared.

Teachers around the country – sadly not nearly enough of them – have been inspired by Escalante to reach higher with their disadvantaged students.

Reports Mathews, at one time “27 percent of all Mexican American students in the country who passed the AP Calculus AB exam were students at Garfield High School in East L.A., where Escalante and his protege, Ben Jimenez, were the calculus teachers.”

Yes, good teachers who believe in their students do matter. We just need a lot more of them.