Movie Notes: Stand And Deliver

Mr. Escalante
*Commutes from the suburbs to the inner city to work in a public school in a "bad neighborhood"
*Ends up in a lower level math class {1A} where the students are rowdy, pay little or no attention and some dont even speak english
*After his first day he finds that his car is broken into and the stereo stolen
*Finds creative ways to teach the so that the students pay attention lesson ie. using an apple to teach percentages
*Students try to scare teachers away with intimidation
*There is little structure, resourses and funding at the school so students tend to do whatever they want with little consequences such as fighting, stealing from the school, pranks on teachers or ditching class
*Most teachers are scared away by the class or don't care for the students future.  This teacher has hope for the students and wants more for them than "frying chicken"
*The school is in danger of losing accredidation
*Mr. escalante believes all the students and teachers need for success in "ganas"-desire
*Some of the students really want to learn, but their pride keeps them from showing there desire to succeed to their piers
*Escalante brings structure into the class which helps the students
*Many of the students have difficult lifes at home.  Some of them are more of parents to their younger siblings while their parents work, one boy takes care of his elderly grandmother,  gang involvement, one girl has to work every day in the family resteraunt because her father wants her to stick with the family.
*The students start to have fun in class and enjoy the lessons, they get to go on field trips
*Many of the other teachers make excuses about the why the kids can't take higher level of classes and Mr. escalante wants to teach summer classes to do everything he can to help the students succeed.
* By the next school year the students are taking calculus!  Mr. escalante wants the kids to get college credit by passing the AP test. He makes up a contract for the students and their parents to sign allowing them to take an extra class every day and stay late after school.
*One of the boys in the class is offered a job and wants to drop the extra class and Mr. escalante teaches him that sometimes you have to see the road ahead instead of just the turn that is right in front of you.
[think about your future in making decisions]
*Escalante works 60 hours a week and volunteers nights and spends no time w/his own family.
*Over-working himself, escalante has a heart attack
* Students have trouble adjusting to a sub who doesn't even know about math
*when suggested to stay out of work for a monthh to recover, escalante leaves the hospital after two days to get back to the class
*after taking the math ap calculus test, every student passed
*Mr. Escalante had faith in these students regarless of their circumstances and pushed them to success
*After suspition that there was cheating by the students, they began to lose faith that they had before.
*One of the administrators thinks that the students really did cheat because Mr. Escalante put them under too much pressure.
*Mr. Escalante feels guilty for the students being accused of cheating because they worked for two years just to end up under investigation for cheating.  He fears that the kids will lose their faith in him as well
*Escalante finds out that the students are accused of cheating not because of the similar wrong answers, but because of a lack of wrong answers and finishing the test with time to spare.  The students were being punished for doing exceptionally well on the tests because of the academic levels in the school district. 
* Escalante feels that the people investigating the test scores are being racist.
*Students decide to re-take the test to prove that they passed.
*After studying all day and night the students go to re-take the test and they all score either a perfect grade or above average yet again.
* In later years Garfield high school went on to have more and more students pass the AP Caluculus test every year

I really enjoyed this movie because It was yet another story of a desire to suceed leading to success.  Mr. Escalante had faith in these students when no one else did and he took them from barely middle school math level to surpassing college level.