Alabama Teacher Suspended For ‘Racist’ Math Test Featuring Prostitution, Drugs, And Murder

“Raul wants to cut the pound of cocaine he bought for $40,000 to make a 20% profit. How many one ounce bags will he need to make to obtain the 20% profit?” Math questions like this got a veteran Alabama teacher Joanne Bolser suspended. The “racist” and inappropriate math test was passed out to her eighth grade language arts class and featured topics such as prostitution, drugs, and murder. School officials were alerted to the questionable subject matter when a student sent a text message to his mother with a photo of the test.

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The Daily Mail reports that the parents of students at Burns Middle School in Mobile, Alabama, were concerned after it was revealed that an eighth grade language arts teacher passed out a test on the second-to-last day of school with content deemed “racist” and inappropriate. The controversial test has gotten a number of teachers in trouble over the years after it was first created in the 1990s.

The teacher, Joanne Bolser, was slated to retire this year and only had one more day left of the school year before her suspension. Therefore, when Bolster passed out the controversial test, many of the students reportedly thought it was a joke. However, students claim that the teacher told them to complete the test and turn it in. Before completing the assignment, one student took a photo of the test and sent it to his mother in a text message. Upon receipt of the image, the student’s mother says she was taken aback and couldn’t believe what she was reading.

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As you can see from the image of the test captured above, the test included a series of ten questions that included topics of a violent and sexual nature. From trying to decipher the percentage of girls in the gang “Tyrone knocked up” to determining how to properly cut a pound of cocaine into one-ounce bags, the test was deemed “racist” and “inappropriate” by many students and parents. It appears school officials agreed and the veteran teacher was immediately suspended.

According to Fox 10, the test was given to the class on Friday, the second-to-last day of the school year. Despite school so close to ending, at least one set of parents went to the school on the final day to demand answers. Erica Hall, the mother who received the image of the test via text message, went to the school to find out why a test like this would be passed out to children.

The school is allegedly performing an internal investigation into the matter but noted that they do not feel the material was appropriate for class. However, this isn’t the first teacher to find herself in hot water over the “L.A. Math Test.” This test has been around since at least the 1990s and was widely circulated via email as far back as 1993.

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Snopes reported on this particular “racist” math test noting that multiple teachers have been disciplined for passing out this controversial test. A Canadian teacher was suspended to non-teaching duties back in 2002 after passing out the same test to her Grade 8 students. In 2008, a male teacher distributed the “L.A. Math Test” to his algebra class and the startling test questions quickly raised concerns with parents.

“In 1997, six teachers at the Elsie Robertson High School in Lancaster, Texas, and another at the Norte Vista High School in Riverside, California, were suspended for doing the same thing. Likewise, in 1994, a Chicago elementary school teacher who gave a similar test was suspended for thirty days without pay and then resigned. Also in 1994, an Indiana high school teacher who gave the test apologized but was suspended anyway. And in 1993, a similar test was printed on phony school letterhead and passed around at workplaces in Redwood City, California.”

What do you think about the “L.A. Math Test?” Should the teacher have known that the test would be deemed inappropriate by school officials even if it was administered as a joke?

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