Stand and Deliver

Biopic of high school teacher Jaime Escalante whose approach to teaching inspired his students and colleagues. He gave up a job as an engineer to take a job at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. The school is on the verge of being decertified by the school district due to poor academic results and Escalante's philosophy is that students will respond to expectations and those at the school are so low that they perform poorly. After several years of success he decides he wants to teach them calculus, driving his students as hard as he can. He also drives himself into having a mild heart attack. Working with the students and also their parents, many of whom think schooling is a waste of time, 18 of them eventually pass the Advanced Placement calculus exam, giving them college credit. The Educational Testing Service finds a number of anomalies in the scores and suspect they have cheated, leading to a crisis. When the students re-write the exam and pass - again with high marks - they and Escalante are exonerated of any wrongdoing and their marks are re-instated.