Advice From Miami-Dade Educators: Embrace Diversity

When it comes to educating Latino students, the nation's fourth-largest school system has a long track record and some success

By Christina A. Samuels

Miami

More than a third of the students enrolled in the nation's urban districts are Hispanic—a milestone the Miami-Dade County, Fla., schools met and surpassed years ago.

The 347,000-student district, the fourth-largest in the nation, is about 65 percent Hispanic. About 54 percent of students speak Spanish at home, with sizable percentages speaking such other languages as Haitian Creole, French, and Portuguese. Seventy percent of the district's students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, a measure of poverty.

Its demographic challenges notwithstanding, Miami-Dade has largely managed to buck the negative trends seen in many other big-city districts with large...