Math Scores

The year that the ghost of Mr. Paulo Sandoval appeared in the Prescott Tamarind Middle School bathroom, washing his hands and murmuring to himself about how he would never be able to grade all of his Algebra papers in one weekend, was a curious year.             It was curious not only because there had been a teacher’s strike in September, extending the summer two heavenly weeks. And it was not curious simply because there were three new teachers, one of them an attractive young lady who looked like she could have been in Middle School herself, Ms Denton. And though it was a wonder to the school at large how Robby Pound managed to convince Dawn Singer to go steady with him, this was not the biggest conundrum. Everyone was focused on those baffling math scores.            It has become a stereotype that boys are better at math than girls. This assertion may or may not be true, and there has been no reconciling of national or worldwide statistics consulted to bare these results out, but if one were to look at the last three years of grading from Prescott Tamarind Middle School one would find that the girls know their stuff. In fact, scoring well at mathematics had become a point of pride for the ladies of P.T.            The Math Club, possibly a male-dominated group in other schools, was filled with girls at P.T. Middle School. Suzanne McComber was the president and she tolerated no less than three boys among the two dozen members of her club. They ruled the state in competitions and six of their members had gone on to specialty high schools after their eighth grade year. The boys could sing baritone and possibly throw a dodge ball harder, but the girls knew their equations.             How then, did this miraculous turnaround happen? Out of seventy-three boys in Prescott Tamarind Middle School—forty-two split between two classes in the 7th grade and thirty-one in one large 8th grade class—seventy-one of them received A’s during the first nine week grading period. Most of them scored well in the 95th percentile and a jaw-dropping thirty boys didn’t miss a question all quarter, receiving 100% for their mathematics classes. And the two who didn’t do well? Dan Haberstein had been out sick for most of the quarter and taken his tests from home: C+. And nasty Rich Kellerman who spent more time in detention than he did in class just didn’t fill out the tests: F.            Suzanne McComber knew a thing or two about adding and she knew this didn’t add up. She started watching the boys in her class, taking note of their studying habits and focus. She tapped into the girl-dominated Math club and quickly built a syndicate of little-girl-spies to keep an eye on their boy counterparts and figure out how the momentum had shifted so dramatically. The few boys in the Math Club were kicked to the curb and the meetings, which used to consist of equation races and Pin the Tail on the Cosine, became a hive of espionage. Two pieces of information were secured: the boys were not studying and the number of bathroom breaks during tests was through the roof.             Dan Haberstein was back in school this quarter, feeling much better, thank you, and his grades had dramatically risen from last period’s C+ to a near perfect 99% through three weeks of graded homework and one test. So Suzanne McComber could not help herself but follow Dan after he raised his hand and asked for the boy’s hallway pass during their Algebra II test. Dan was the fifth boy to request the pass during the test and Suzanne could swear that there was some type of underhanded communication occurring from the boys who had returned from the bathroom. After Dan exited, Suzanne raised her hand, secured the girl’s hallway pass, and tailed her suspect.             To her surprise, Dan Haberstein actually did make a line straight for the bathroom. She followed him to the crest of the doorway and leaned in to listen, the smells of urinal cakes and ammonia flooding her nose. No bathroom noises, she noticed, just some rustling of paper and then Dan’s quiet voice.             “Solve for X,” Dan said in a whisper. “2(x + 7) – 3(2x-4) = -18.”            Then, to Suzanne’s surprise, an adult voice spoke. “X equals 11!”            Suzanne was shocked. An adult helping the boys cheat! Who would do such a thing? It must be some horrible anti-feminist who couldn’t stand that the girls were so good at math. Mr. Palmer, perhaps. But it was over now. Suzanne had them dead to rights.             She heard Dan’s voice again, “Solve the following inequity: -20 < 4-2x.”            “12 < X,” the voice said without missing a beat.            Suzanne rushed in and yelled “Aha!”            The scene in the boy’s bathroom took the gust out of her accusation. Dan Haberstein stood in the center of the tiles with his Algebra test spread before him. There was a blue ghost washing his hands at the sink, clearly a repeater, whom she recognized as Mr. Sandoval, a math teacher who her sister had had three years prior. She remembered hearing that he died last summer.            “What’s…what’s going on here?” Suzanne asked.            “He knows all the answers,” Dan said, pointing to the ghost.             Suzanne was about to call Dan and all the boys of Prescott Tamarind Middle School cheats and let him know that she would be promptly turning them in. She opened her mouth and then paused. She looked at the ghostly figure, barely visible in the fluorescent lighting of the boy’s bathroom, and wrinkled her brow.            “John has mowed three lawns,” she said. “If he can mow two lawns per hour, which equations describes the number of lawns, m, he can complete after h, more hours?”            “m = 2h + 3,” Mr. Sandoval said, still washing his hands.            “Oh,” Suzanne said, looking at Dan, a little embarrassed. “Right.”