Convergent Paths

Equity & Opportunity through Education in the United States & South
Africa

Kendra L. Hearn,
Ph.D.
Fulbright Hays Seminar
Abroad in South Africa 2008

Curriculum Project
Abstract and Description
Project Title
Convergent Paths: Creating Equity and Opportunity through Education in the
United States and South Africa

About the Project Principal

Kendra Hearn, Ph.D. is currently the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum
& Instruction for the West Bloomfield School District in West Bloomfield,
Michigan. She earned her B.A. in English from the University of Michigan
(93), and her M.A. in Education Administration from the University of Detroit
Mercy (95). Her doctoral dissertation, “Artifacts of Thought: Evidence of
Metacognition in Twelfth Grade Students’ Reflective Writing, led to the
completion of her Doctor of Philosophy degree from Wayne State University
in 2005. She taught English Language Arts in the Detroit Public Schools (94-
96) and at West Bloomfield High School (96-2001). During her tenure as a
teacher, she developed a Multicultural Literature Course and taught for MIT’s
Concord Consortium Virtual High School. Along her career path, she has
served as a Professional Development Consultant and Director of Curriculum,
and has written a comprehensive English Language Art Curriculum for the
Henry Ford Academy. She is an acclaimed educator, having earned National
Board for Professional Teaching Standards Certification (98) and a Milken
National Educator Award (99). She resides in Detroit, Michigan with her
husband, Donald; and sons, Donny and Dylan.

Project website
www.drkendrahearn.com

Project Abstract
The educational histories of the United States and South Africa as impacted
by issues of race and segregation are clearly similar. This project will explore
the policies, teaching and learning philosophies, pedagogies, and
programmatic initiatives adopted by the country of South Africa, its
respective provinces and their schools to create equitable and accessible
learning opportunities for students of all races in their post-apartheid era.

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Comparisons will be drawn to the same initiatives taken on by the United
States in its post-civil rights era. The project will seek to investigate how
South Africa may have learned from the Unites States’ initiatives (e.g.
desegregation through bussing, mandatory integration, compulsory
education, NCLB – data disaggregation by subgroup, vocational
education/Perkins, college readiness and support programs, etc.), what
approaches they may have purposefully avoided and new ones they may
have developed that the U.S. and/or its schools may be able to adopt. The
project findings will be shared in multimedia formats, including published
papers, blogs, and digital stories. Particular focus will be paid to the
teaching of literacy.

Project Narrative

Convergent Paths seeks to uncover how and why separation and inequality in
schooling persist in both the United States and South Africa using the
following inquiry questions as a guide:

• Have the people of South Africa found solutions to their racial and
economic divides, particularly as it pertains to education that we in
America have yet to discover?
• In what ways are educators of South Africa attempting to mitigate the
opportunity gaps that result in performance and achievement gaps
along racial and socio-economic lines?
• Do Black and White children attend and succeed in school together? If
so, what characterizes their coexistence and success?
• What is the epistemological stance of classroom educators and
administrators to issues of equity and access to disadvantaged youth?
How are their philosophies employed in their daily practice, school
structures, programs, and policies?

The framework for my observations is based on seminal documents, policies,

and laws of both countries, including the U.S. Constitution and Brown v
Board of Education, as well as the 1995 Constitution of the Republic of South
Africa, widely regarded as one of the most progressive and radical. Its

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accompanying action plan emphasized the importance of education by
stating,

“Everyone has the right: (a) to a basic education, including

adult basic education; and (b) to further education, which
the state, through reasonable measures, must make
progressively available and accessible.”

This project seeks to identify those reasonable measures and how they have
been made available and accessible progressively. It will embark to discover
which parts of the action plan have come into fruition and what remains to
be realized. All the while, comparisons to the United States’ approaches to
attempt to create the same type of equity and access will be drawn.

Findings from this project will be published in a variety of media, including

blogs, published papers, and digital stories. These media will help to bring
back to the students, teachers, administrators, elected officials, parents and
community members within my circle of influence:
• strategies to improve critical (higher order thinking), traditional
(reading/writing) and new (technological) literacies among
students, especially boys who seem to lag behind our female
students in reading and writing and our ESL population as
compared to our native-born population.
• programs or initiatives to increase equity and inclusion between
the racial and socio-economic groups in our schools and larger
school community;
• descriptors of effective instructional strategies, policies, or school
structures that are more culturally relevant and responsive, as
well as more engaging to learners with a variety of learning
needs;
• characterizations of schools that are racially diverse with critical
attributes of their success for emulation;
• systemic approaches to increase participation of boys, ethnic
minority, poor, and language learning students in paths of study
toward college readiness and/or high-skilled work and
technology-related paths; and
• a general awareness and appreciation for South African culture
and the similarities in their country’s civil rights struggle and
ours.

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