Georgia Parents Outraged Over School Math Assignment Featuring Questions About Slavery, Beatings

Parents of students at Beaver Ridge Elementary school in Norcross, Ga., are up in arms after seeing a math assignment that teachers sent home for their elementary school children to complete. The problem? Some of the questions were insanely insensitive for a math test being handed out in the year 2012.

“Each tree had 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?”

And:

“If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?”

The school explained the questions as a cross-curricular assignment between the social studies and math departments. Another question on the assignment, for example, asked about Susan B. Anthony being fined $100 because she voted in an election for President.

The school says copies of the assignment have been destroyed, to ensure this will never happen again.

Watch the local news report on the story below, courtesy of WSB in Georgia:

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!