The third-grade worksheet tried to mix math and social studies, and now some parents are saying a Georgia school made an error of historic proportions.
One question on the controversial elementary school test asked, “Each tree had 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?”
Another question was: “If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in 1 week? 2 weeks?”
Angry parents in Norcross, Ga., want an apology.
“Intentionally or not, this was inappropriate,” Jennifer Falk, a parent and activist, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Terrance Barnett told WSB-TV in Atlanta: “I’m having to explain to my 8-year-old why slavery or slave or beatings is in a math problem. So that hurts.”
Another parent, Christopher Braxton, said he was furious.
“It kind of blew me away,” he told the Journal-Constitution. “If anyone got any beatings, you don’t put that into the homework of any sort.”
A spokeswoman for the school district, Sloan Roach, told reporters that two teachers at the Beaver Ridge Elementary School were trying to incorporate the history the students had been studying into their math exercises. They had just read a book about slavery in their social studies class.
“Clearly, they did not do as good of a job as they should have done,” she told the newspaper.
The principal, Jose DeJesus, shredded the worksheets so that they were not distributed again and said would meet with parents. Administrators will work with the teachers to devise new questions and review them before they are sent home with students.
“But the bigger questions is how could something like this happen?” Falk asked.
– Noreen O’Donnell
One question on the controversial elementary school test asked, “Each tree had 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?”
Another question was: “If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in 1 week? 2 weeks?”
Angry parents in Norcross, Ga., want an apology.
“Intentionally or not, this was inappropriate,” Jennifer Falk, a parent and activist, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Terrance Barnett told WSB-TV in Atlanta: “I’m having to explain to my 8-year-old why slavery or slave or beatings is in a math problem. So that hurts.”
Another parent, Christopher Braxton, said he was furious.
“It kind of blew me away,” he told the Journal-Constitution. “If anyone got any beatings, you don’t put that into the homework of any sort.”
A spokeswoman for the school district, Sloan Roach, told reporters that two teachers at the Beaver Ridge Elementary School were trying to incorporate the history the students had been studying into their math exercises. They had just read a book about slavery in their social studies class.
“Clearly, they did not do as good of a job as they should have done,” she told the newspaper.
The principal, Jose DeJesus, shredded the worksheets so that they were not distributed again and said would meet with parents. Administrators will work with the teachers to devise new questions and review them before they are sent home with students.
“But the bigger questions is how could something like this happen?” Falk asked.
– Noreen O’Donnell
