Drugs, sex and gangs are new math problems
By Kieran Murray
DALLAS (Reuter) - Six Texas high school teachers tried a different approach to get their students' attention by quizzing them on the mathematical problems inherent in a life of drugs, gangs, violence and sex.
Instead, the experiment in urban math sparked a storm of protest and all six teachers were suspended.
Dwain Dawson, principal at the Elsie Roberts High School in the Dallas suburb of Lancaster, said Tuesday that math department head Scott Martin was suspended for 60 days and five other teachers were each suspended for 30 days, all without pay.
Last Thursday, when classes resumed following summer vacation, the teachers handed out a joke worksheet that included the following questions:
- Hector has knocked up six girls in his gang. There are 27 girls in the gang. What percentage of the girls in the gang has Hector knocked up?
- Johnny has an AK-47 with an 80-round clip. If he misses six 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?
- Jerome wants to cut his half-pound of heroin to make 20 percent more profit. How many ounces of cut will be needed?
- 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?
"They should never have used the test," Dawson said. "It was a poor professional decision and it's unacceptable."
Martin apologized Tuesday for upsetting the parents of students at the school, but said he had used the test in the past for classes with difficult students and had received no complaints.
"It was intended as an ice-breaker, of letting kids know that we have a sense of humor and a sense of what goes on in the world," Martin said.
"None of us would sanction the kinds of behavior described or say they are appropriate. We simply acknowledge that those kinds of behavior exist and that we are aware of them," he said.
The worksheet was titled "City of Los Angeles High School Math Proficiency Exam" and appeared to have been informally circulated as a joke among teachers at schools across the country in recent years.
It was not known how well the Dallas students scored on the test.
So, what's the big deal? Even I could figure out the answer to three out of four of the problems. The $65 trick question was a trick question. Tricks are priced in increments of $10, uh, er, umm, or so I've been told, that is. |
