In a move that few would have predicted a year ago, the State Board of Regents on Dec. 14 voted nearly unanimously to eliminate state-provided growth scores based on state test scores from teacher evaluations for four years.

The Regents is expected to soon make official this change through emergency regulations, with a public comment period to follow. Only outgoing chancellor Merryl Tisch voted to keep the state scores in evaluations.

The Regents vote follows on the heels of a report by a Common Core task force convened by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The task force report, released on Dec. 10, called for a full review and rewrite of the state’s adopted Common Core Learning Standards and related curriculum and tests, as well as a state ban on using state growth scores to evaluate students or teachers until the 2019-20 school year.

“The task force report urges a fundamental reset of education policy in New York State,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew wrote in an email to members. “In contrast to the state’s failed implementation of the Common Core standards, the task force says now is the time to get it right. It calls for the new system to be developed and implemented over time — and with educator input every step of the way.”

The governor is expected to embrace the task force report in his State of the State address on Jan. 13. The task force was formed after parents and educators across the state decried the growing fixation on high-stakes tests.

The prospect of eliminating the state ELA and math scores for grades 3-8 from teacher evaluation became a real possibility only after President Barack Obama signed new federal education legislation on Dec. 10 to replace the No Child Left Behind Act. The new law expressly forbids the federal government from mandating the use of tests scores in teacher evaluation and from mandating the use of the Common Core standards.

“It is well-established that there were significant issues with the rollout and implementation of the Common Core standards causing parents, educators, and other stakeholders to lose trust in the system,” the report’s executive summary says, noting the failure to involve educators, lack of transparency and “complicated and difficult” state-written curriculums. The task force also singled out the current early-grade standards as not age-appropriate.

The 15-member task force was chaired by former Citigroup chairman Richard Parsons and included AFT President Randi Weingarten, elected officials and educators, including teacher Kishayna Hazlewood from PS 156 in Brownsville [see story below].

The task force calls for the rewritten standards to be implemented over the next four years, with appropriate accommodations made to meet the needs of special education students and English language learners. Teacher-created curriculum aligned to the standards would also be developed. The panel said tests should be shorter, with questions and tasks that are developmentally appropriate for each grade.

A second task force, formed by State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia and the State Education Department, is continuing to work on revisions to the standards. It expects to report in June, but plans to make recommendations to the governor before his January address.

Commissioner Elia said last spring that she would eliminate questions from both the math and reading tests to make them shorter.