Publications and studies about educational reform throughout America’s lengthy, and South Africa’s recent history, are abundant. Throughout a variety of documents, articles and reports several themes are consistent. Inequality, poverty, and non-school influences affect school systems and student achievement past and present. Equity in public school systems remains a problem in the United States (US) and South Africa (SA) today. These distant parts of the world have lengthy and complicated socio-economic (SES) history along with the ubiquitous influence of race and poverty. Centuries have passed and the US has progressed further to ease widespread racial respect and transitions compared to South Africa, though effectual comparisons are evident and could be influential. Two vastly distant geographic regions have comparable race and poverty issues influencing systemic reform and educational progress for all children. The US is an industrial, wealthy and diverse nation of 300 million with a radical ethnic past. South Africa, a large and developing country of 50 million—comparable size to our southern US— is naturally resourceful but still freshly divided racially and tenuous politically. Class and race distinctions, democracy and capitalism, and education accessibility create troubling inequity socially, economically and within education systems (Jester, 2005). The current and long-term effects continue to hamper progress. Without grass roots change and more equitable transformation, the scope of what can be achieved gets broader. With a brief historical summary as a fading but ever-present backdrop, the issues of education reform post-emancipation in America and post-apartheid in South Africa can be compared and discussed further.