Jaime Escalante: Sensational Teacher," by Ann Byers is based on the life story of Jaime Escalante, a new high school teacher in East L.A. in 1982, who decides to change the lives of his students by preparing them for an advanced placement test in calculus. I chose this book because it was a book I read when I was younger and I remember thinking that the teacher did such amazing things with the students. Now …showed first 75 words of 954 total…

…showed last 75 words of 954 total…forces working against him - perhaps he is lucky in some instances, but perhaps something about his humanity works- flawed as he may be, he reaches those students. Of course, this is the heroic version of the tale and the "real" story was probably much more complicated and perhaps not as glorious. On the whole though, the message of the story is positive: "students will rise to the level of expectations," so aim high (Menendez 1988).