In the words of Liz Lemon in the opening scene of 30 Rock's season premiere, Happy 2012!
A belated happy new year to all. 2012 promises to be a year of change, which I guess can be said of every year, and every day for that matter. The year has gotten off to a tumultuous start. The reverberations of the State Education Department coming down hard on impartial hearing officers is being felt at the local level. Mayor Bloomberg's State of the City address emphasized education reform, including specific proposals for merit-based pay and teacher evaluations. Martin Luther King Day was used as a call to action with both Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Cuomo urging to cut through the bureaucracy and implement change. "It is this simple: It is not about the adults; it is about the children," Cuomo said. Somewhere along the way Rupert Murdoch called Cuomo a chicken - anyone know what that was about? In any event, if New York wants to recoup the hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid that it has missed out on as a result of not implementing a teacher evaluation system, now would be a good time to act.