Sankofa Shule was a charter school in

Lansing, Michigan Lansing () is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Michigan. The most populous city in Ingham County, Michigan, Ingham County, parts of the city extend into Eaton County, Michigan, Eaton County and nort ...

. The school's name is a mix of

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Swahili Swahili may refer to: * Swahili language, a Bantu language officially used in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda and widely spoken in the African Great Lakes. * Swahili people, an ethnic group in East Africa. * Swahili culture, the culture of the Swahili p ...

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Newspapers.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. It is owned by The ...

History

It was established in 1995. Its original enrollment was 116. For a period it occupied a building that also had a beauty school. �
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. The charter school's authorizer was

Central Michigan University Central Michigan University (CMU) is a Public university, public research university in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, United States. It was established in 1892 as a private normal school and became a state institution in 1895. CMU is one of the eigh ...

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. By 2002 CMU and the school were involved in a conflict over finances. In 2007 CMU stopped renewing the charter, and the school closed.

Operations

The school used "Baba" and "Mama", from Swahili, as ways to address male and female teachers, and it used variations of the

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. The school featured prominent African-Americans in its decorations. Students were placed in classes organized by ability instead of traditional grade level classes. The physical education curricula included dance styles from the African continent.
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. “Sankofa Shule … produced low-income African American students who could read two to four levels above grade level, who did algebra and calculus in grade school and who out scored the Lansing School District and the state of Michigan on state the accountability test (MEAP) in 2000 in mathematics and in writing. The school was called ‘an educational powerhouse’ by U.S. News & World Report in the April 27, 1998 issue.” Lisa Delpit, Multiplication is for white people raising expectations for other people’s children, 2012

Curriculum

The school used an Afrocentric curriculum. The school had foreign language classes for Swahili, French, Japanese, and Spanish.

References

* – ISBNs for the Google Books pages: 1412940508, 9781412940504 �
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Notes

External links