The Board of Regents took an important step this month when it directed the New York State Education Department to develop a plan for eliminating glaring weaknesses in the state testing system. As a first move, the Regents voted to require that state tests for third through eighth grades be given on the same day all over the state. And, from now on, teachers and administrators will have to certify that they have received and will follow the same administrative protocols.

The state is relying ever more heavily on standardized exams to make schools accountable for student performance. The Regents exams now determine whether high school students can graduate, and the yearly tests in elementary and middle schools are used in decisions on how schools are run. In coming years, teachers will also be judged, in part, on how much their students improve on state tests. Given their growing importance, the tests have to have better security measures than exist now.

A central weakness of the current Regents testing regime is that the exams are typically scored in the schools where they are given, sometimes by teachers who grade their own students. The state must prohibit that practice. The board has also asked the department to develop a plan for centralizing statewide scoring of the multiple choice questions that would include erasure and error pattern analysis, and it has asked for a proposal to bar teachers from proctoring exams for their own students.

These changes would reduce opportunities for cheating and boost public confidence in the process. Tighter controls, however, could mean increased costs. Cash-strapped districts, hobbled by a new state property tax cap that makes it extremely difficult for them to raise new revenue, are already cutting academic programs and cannot bear new expenses. If the Education Department moves ahead with these necessary reforms, the governor and the Legislature must find the money to pay for it.