NEW YORK -- A math teacher borrowed a theme from a social studies lesson and used references to slavery as math problems for 9-year-olds.

Questions like: "One slave got whipped five times a day. How many times did he get whipped in a month?"

Parents are outraged and the school is taking action saying the lesson wasn't the best idea.

"It's something that was inappropriate and appalling," said Dennis Walcott, the NYC school's chancellor. "Those are two different genres together."

But parents on the school council said the mixing of math and social studies was a good idea, but that topic wasn't the best choice.