The ban, which will go into effect in the 2012-13 school year for all elementary school, middle school and high school standardized exams, will reverse a longstanding practice that State Education Department officials say is inappropriate in an era when student test scores are used to evaluate teachers and principals. It is also a move to avoid the kind of cheating scandals that have erupted in cities like Atlanta and Washington. The full Board of Regents, which sets education policy, is set to formally approve the ban on Tuesday.

“The Regents and department have faith that virtually all educators are doing the right thing,” said John B. King Jr., the state education commissioner, explaining the need for the ban. “However, where possible, if we can eliminate potential breakdowns in test integrity, we should.”

Audits by the state comptroller dating back to 1990 have shown that schools tend to give more lenient grades on state Regents exams than do teams of expert scorers. In addition, state officials have known for years that many more students score just at or above a passing grade on Regents tests than just below a passing grade, a sign that graders are helping to push some students over the bar.

Districts will have a year to figure out how to set up new systems for grading the exams, whether at different schools, by computer or at regional scoring centers. The shift may lead to additional costs for districts and will most likely require that Regents exams, now given just before high school graduation, be held earlier in the spring.

The Regents committee also agreed to ask the governor and state lawmakers for $2.1 million for a series of anticheating measures that would take effect this year, officials said, including about $1 million to analyze erasure marks on 10 percent of the tests the state gives annually. Officials also want to try computer-based testing, which they hope will be in wide use by 2015.

Separately, the Regents committee signaled on Monday that New York will seek a waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind law’s requirements, joining the majority of states in seeking relief. The Regents had previously created a group of educators from across the state, including education professors and district administrators, to help write its application for the waiver, which is due in February.

Because the federal law requires all students to be proficient in math and English by 2014, New York, like other states, faced a situation in which a very large number of its schools would have been considered failing.

The waiver, Dr. King said, would allows the department “to distinguish between schools that are making progress and those that are truly stuck.”

The Regents also agreed to press Congress to pass the Dream Act, which would give children of illegal immigrants a path to citizenship if they attend college or join the military. An estimated 12 percent, or 345,000, of the kindergarten through 12th grade students in New York are children of illegal immigrants. New York State already allows illegal immigrants who grew up in New York to attend public colleges at in-state tuition rates.