INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Alabama Teacher Suspended For ‘Racist’ Math Test About Guns, Gangs, Drugs, And Prostitutes

By Lindsay McCane
Published on: 02:17 PST, Jun 2, 2016

An Alabama teacher has suspended after requiring her eighth grade students to partake in a math test that many have called inappropriate and racist.

The unidentified teacher reportedly works at Burns Middle School in Mobile, Alabama, and handed out the test on Tuesday, May 31. A picture of the test, which has been circulated online for years under the name “L.A. Math Proficiency Test” or “The City of Los Angeles High School Math Proficiency Exam,” was taken by a student and later showed to his mother, Erica Hall.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Hall told WALA-TV. “She told them that it wasn’t a joke, and they had to complete it, and turn it in.”

Check out a few of the questions from the assignment below.

1. Johnny has an AK-47 with an 80-round clip. If he misses 6 out of 10 shots and shoots 13 times at each drive-by shooting, how many drive-by shootings can he attempt before he has to reload?

2. Jose has 2 ounces of cocaine and he sells an 8-ball to Jackson for $320 and 2 grams to Billy for$85 per gram. What is the street value of the balance of the cocaine if he doesn’t cut it?

3. Rufus is pimping for three girls. If the price is $65 for each trick, how many tricks will each girl have to turn so Rufus can pay for his $800-per-day crack habit?

4. Jarone want to cut his 1/2 pound of heroin to make 20% more profit. How many ounces of cut will he need?

5. Willie gets $200 for stealing a BMW, $50 for a Chevy, and $100 for a 4X4. If he has stolen 2 BMWs,3 4X4s, how many Chevies will he have to steal to make $800?

According to Raw Story, Hall raised concerns about the “racist” assignment, which was almost identical to the one that appears online, with the school officials, who then immediately launched an internal investigation.

Rena Philips, a spokeswoman for Mobile County Public School System, did not provide the teacher’s name or any other details regarding the incident. However, she did say the teacher had been placed on administrative leave until the investigation was complete, according to the Washington Post.

“We regret that this happened, especially so close to the end of the school year,” Philips said. “We have 7,500 employees in Mobile County public schools, and the vast majority of them are doing phenomenal work in our classrooms.”

According to the website Snopes, which put together a brief history of the math assignment, the test has been available online since the 1990s, and was available in hard copy form in the 1980s.

“Its humor is obvious: it simultaneously deplores the state of education in large urban centers and furthers the myth that teens from such regions are thoroughly steeped in a drugs, guns, gangs, and promiscuity culture by asserting that even the math questions directed towards them have to be framed in that context to be relevant to their lives,” Snopes reported.

This isn’t the first time a teacher has found herself in trouble for distributing the math test to students. In fact, a number of teachers have been disciplined for using the exam for educational purposes. In June, 2002, a teacher at Juniper School in Thompson, Manitoba, was suspended for passing out the “racist” test.

What do you think about the teacher asking her students to complete the test? Do you think the teacher should face disciplinary action? Leave your comments below.

[Photo by Tim Boyle/ Getty Images]

Share this article: Alabama Teacher Suspended For ‘Racist’ Math Test About Guns, Gangs, Drugs, And Prostitutes
More from Inquisitr