Legacy of the Teacher Who Made Students Stand and Deliver

In 1988, the film

Stand and Deliver made a celebrity out of a Bolivian-born calculus teacher at LA's Garfield High School. Edward James Olmos played the starring role of Jaime Escalante, who died yesterday of cancer at the age of 79.

Jay Mathews was LA bureau chief for the Washington Post in those days, and he had written a book called

Escalante: the Best Teacher in America

. We remember this giant of education with Mathews, colleagues and former students.