--- title: Alabama Teacher Gave Inappropriate Math Test description: The day before retirement she tested kids on guns, drugs and prostitutes canonical: https://time.com/4354917/alabama-teacher-math-quiz/ author: Denver Nicks article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-06-02T14:49:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:47:42.115Z og:title: Alabama Teacher Gave Her Students a Ridiculously Inappropriate Math Test og:description: The day before retirement she tested kids on guns, drugs and prostitutes og:url: https://time.com/4354917/alabama-teacher-math-quiz/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Alabama Teacher Gave Her Students a Ridiculously Inappropriate Math Test twitter:description: The day before retirement she tested kids on guns, drugs and prostitutes twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Alabama Teacher Gave Her Students a Ridiculously Inappropriate Math Test > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ## Video: Teacher 'Invented' Story About Being Stabbed By ISIS Supporter [Watch (HLS stream): Teacher 'Invented' Story About Being Stabbed By ISIS Supporter](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/4aXvFnRx.m3u8) (0:48)  _Published 2015-12-14. Prosecutors say a French nursery school teacher lied about being stabbed by a masked man who claimed to be acting on behalf of ISIS._  by [Denver Nicks](https://time.com/author/denver-nicks/)  ## Denver Nicks Jun 2, 2016 2:49 PM UTC  by [Denver Nicks](https://time.com/author/denver-nicks/)  ## Denver Nicks Jun 2, 2016 2:49 PM UTC On the eve of retiring from her long career as an educator at Burns Middle School in Mobile, Ala., a teacher [gave](http://local15tv.com/news/local/mobile-county-teacher-placed-on-leave-over-quiz-on-drugsprostitutes) a math test that students and parents say had racist overtones and references to inappropriate subject matter. JoAnne Bolser—a longtime teacher described by a colleague to local NBC affiliate WPMI as a “well respected educator”—was put on paid administrative leave after parents complained to the school about the content of the test she handed out. Questions included: _Tyrone knocked up 4 girls in the gang. There are 20 girls in his gang. What is the exact percentage of girls Tyrone knocked up?_ _Dwayne pimps 3 ho’s. If the price is $85 per trick, how many tricks per day must each ho turn to support Dwayne’s $800 per day crack habit?_ According to the myth debunking site [Snopes](http://www.snopes.com/humor/question/mathtest.asp), the test is a decades-old joke that has been circulated in different forms for decades, and Bolser is not the first teacher to be reprimanded for giving the test to students. “While some of the kids may know what these terms mean, they shouldn’t have to be flooded with them from school administrators and teachers,” [said](http://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/pimps-hos-math-test-earns-eighth-grade-teacher-time-out-n584191) the parent of one boy who took the quiz. “At some point somebody’s got to take a stand for righteousness and I think the ball got dropped on this big time.” The school could not immediately be reached for comment. \[[WPMI](http://local15tv.com/news/local/mobile-county-teacher-placed-on-leave-over-quiz-on-drugsprostitutes)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4354917/alabama-teacher-math-quiz/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4354917/alabama-teacher-math-quiz/"},"headline":"Alabama Teacher Gave Her Students a Ridiculously Inappropriate Math Test","datePublished":"2016-06-02T14:49:35.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:47:42.115Z","description":"The day before retirement, she tested kids on guns, drugs and prostitutes","url":"https://time.com/4354917/alabama-teacher-math-quiz/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Education","alabama","U.S.","teacher","Racism","Math","mathematics"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Denver Nicks","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/denver-nicks/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4354917/alabama-teacher-math-quiz/","name":"Alabama Teacher Gave Her Students a Ridiculously Inappropriate Math Test"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Teacher 'Invented' Story About Being Stabbed By ISIS Supporter","description":"Prosecutors say a French nursery school teacher lied about being stabbed by a masked man who claimed to be acting on behalf of ISIS.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/4aXvFnRx/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-12-14T15:51:41.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/4aXvFnRx.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4354917/alabama-teacher-math-quiz/","duration":"PT48S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4354917/alabama-teacher-math-quiz/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```