From The Mayor's Desk ...
2007: A Year Of Progress In Education, Quality Of Life And Public Safety

The New Year is only a few days old, but I think it's fair to say that it will be one for the record books. New Yorkers are living longer than at any point since World War II, our population is rising, and tourists are coming to visit us in record numbers.

Over the past year, we've launched more than 30 innovative poverty-fighting programs to give struggling New Yorkers a hand up, and we've begun work on most of the 127 proposals outlined in PlaNYC - our ambitious agenda to guide New York's future growth while confronting major challenges like climate change and traffic congestion.

But much of New York's success in 2007 is owed to the fact that we continue to make great strides in three key areas of city life: education; quality of life; and public safety.

Public schools are the training grounds for the leaders of tomorrow. That's why our administration has made improving them a top priority. In 2007, we reformed the school funding process to address historic inequities, we reached agreements to award bonuses to educators who work in our highest-need schools and improve student achievement and we gave parents powerful new insight into their child's classroom by issuing progress reports that grade each school from A to F.

All of this will build on the gains we've already made in higher graduation rates, improved test scores, and the narrowing of the achievement gap among students of different ethnicities.

Our quality of life also improved. In June, our citizens' service hotline, 311, recorded its 50 millionth call since inception. And I must not be the only one who dials those numbers when I notice some litter on the streets, because this year our street cleanliness rating also rose to 94.3 percent, its highest rating in more than three decades. We can expect to see that rating climb in 2008 thanks to a new program we launched this summer. SCOUT - which stands for Street Condition Observation Unit - is a team of 15 City specialists that combs the streets for quality-of-life problems such as dirty sidewalks, graffiti, and potholes. Its inspectors cover every street in the city once a month.

We've taken some big strides to improve public education and quality of life, but these gains wouldn't mean much without safe streets. Thanks to the hard-working men and women of the NYPD our streets just keep getting safer. Right now, we have a historic crime-fighting achievement within our reach: recording fewer murders for 2007 than in any year since statistics have been kept. Since 2001, crime has dropped citywide by 26 percent, and over the past year, we've driven crime down in every borough and in virtually every major category - making our schools, our public housing, and our subways safer than ever before. Innovative crime-fighting strategies have long been the hallmark of the NYPD, and one that's worked particularly well is Operation Impact that strategically deploys resources to stamp out crime in the neighborhoods where criminal activity is most concentrated. Last week, we graduated a class of 914 new police officers - all of whom will now become part of this successful program.

The past year has been a tremendous one for New York City, so let's give three cheers for our teachers and principals, our sanitation workers, our police officers, and all city employees who have worked so hard to make 2007 one of our best years ever. I'd like to wish them - and all of you - a happy and healthy New Year.