Miami-Dade's $6 million windfall: South Florida district gets seven-figure surplus to buy library books for at-risk schools.(slj news)

Poorly lit libraries with rickety furniture. Sparse book collections bearing an average copyright date of 1985 and outdated computers in the media center--if there was any equipment at all. That's what Irving Hamer discovered when he made the rounds of the 39 low-performing schools in Miami-Dade County, FL, that he supervises as deputy superintendent of the School Improvement Zone. "The state of the media centers reflected the low achievement of the students," says Hamer. The conditions prompted him to convince the Miami-Dade school board in April to approve a $6 million reallocation of capital improvement funds to purchase new library materials for all Zone schools, cited by …