New York took another step toward removing state test scores as a component in teacher evaluations on Monday, when members of the Board of Regents voted in favor of a four-year moratorium on their use.
The vote completed a sharp reversal of the state’s policy earlier this year, when the Legislature voted to increase the weight of test scores in evaluations.
The Regents were following a recommendation made last week by a task force created by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. It called for revising the state’s standards on what students should know and eliminating state tests when evaluating teachers, at least through the 2018-19 school year.
The task force’s report, which came with Mr. Cuomo’s implicit approval, represented an about face by the governor, a Democrat, who in January had called for test scores to account for half of some teachers’ evaluations.
The governor’s push to increase the weight of test scores upset the teachers’ unions and many parents, and was considered a factor when 20 percent of students sat out state math and reading tests — which had been aligned with the Common Core national benchmarks — this year.
Regents are elected by the Legislature and do not report to the governor.
The vote on Monday was, technically, cast by a committee of the board, although the panel is made up of the entire board. The board will vote again on Tuesday, making the moratorium official. Only one member, the departing chancellor, Merryl H. Tisch, voted against the moratorium.
The board also discussed the results of teacher evaluations from last year. As in previous years, a vast majority of teachers around the state — 96 percent — were rated “effective” or “highly effective.” Roughly 3 percent were rated as “developing,” and less than 1 percent were rated “ineffective.”
In New York City, which has a somewhat tougher evaluation system, a little over 1 percent were rated ineffective; more than 6 percent were rated developing.
In January, arguing to increase the weight of test scores, Mr. Cuomo cited the small number of teachers who were rated ineffective, noting that at the same time only about a third of students were reading or doing math at grade level, as measured by state tests. Removing the test scores from evaluations will almost certainly result in even fewer teachers’ being rated ineffective.
The Regents on Monday also heard a report from Dennis M. Walcott, the former New York City schools chancellor, whom the state appointed in August to lead monitors overseeing the East Ramapo school district in Rock..., which has been accused of diverting money from its public schools to provide services for yeshiva students.
One of the top recommendations by Mr. Walcott’s three-person team was that the state appoint a monitor with the power to veto decisions by the locally elected school board. A bill to create such a position was passed by the State Assembly earlier this year, but was not brought for a vote in the State Senate.
Roughly 8,500 students, most of them black and Latino, attend the public schools in East Ramapo, while another 23,000 students in the district attend private schools, mostly yeshivas. Orthodox Jews have held a majority of seats on the board since 2005.
Since 2009, the board has made major cuts to the public schools, eliminating over 400 positions and reducing kindergarten to a half day while increasing spending on special education and transportation for private school students.
After the Legislature failed to create a monitor with veto power, the state education commissioner, MaryEllen Elia, appointed the team led by Mr. Walcott to study the district’s operations. The Regents voted on Monday to adopt the monitors’ recommendations.
In an interview, Mr. Walcott said that he had “a great relationship” with the school board president, Yehuda Weissmandl, but that the fragile condition of the district and the level of mistrust of the board among public school parents made it vital to have a monitor with veto power. “There isn’t a guarantee that the current president will be there or that I will be there in the future,” he said.
Mr. Weissmandl in a statement expressed support for some of the report’s recommendations but called the proposal for a monitor with veto power “disappointing,” saying that it was “likely to reprise the divisions and strife we saw in the district last year.”
