A computer programmer, Jaime Escalante quit his job and became a math teacher at Garfield Senior High-School located in the East Los Angeles in California. Jaime drives a VW Bug and teaches 18 high school students calculus well enough for them to pass an Advance Placement Calculus Exam. Most of the 18 high school students struggle with multiplication and fractions and are gang-members and have no hope. However, Jaime Escalante says they have potential and turns them into the country's top calculus and algebra students by teaching them strategies. After teaching them for months, the Advance Placement Calculus Exam takes place. They were given an hour and thirty minutes to complete the exam.
After the exam, there was an announcement saying 18 students tried the Advance Placement test and 18 of them passed. A few days later, the school called and assumed the students cheated because they all had the same wrong answers. Jaime Escalante was furious when he heard this. One of his students called in and asked if all 18 students can re-take the Advance Placement Test. The school allowed them to re-take the test but had only one day to study. Jaime Escalante and the students studied all day and night for the test the next day.
The next day, everyone re-took the test. Every single student passed the Advance Placement test with different scores that year in 1982. The amount of people passing from Garfield High School now increased every year from 18 people in 1982 to 87 people passing in 1987.
My favorite part in the movie was when after Jaime had an argument with the people that suspected that the students cheated, he left the building and had found his VW Bug missing. Jaime had to walk all the way home and when he got home; he went upstairs to his room and sat on the bed. A few minutes later, a few of his students came by his house and shouted that they fixed his car up. Jaime's son said, “Hey dad, look at your new car!!” I liked that part because that part was funny.
