In yet another chapter on how teachers are evaluated, the New York Board of Regents on Tuesday passed an emergency measure to halt the use of student test scores in teacher performance reviews for four years.  

The vote came after a task force last week recommended the moratorium until new learning standards are phased in. That task force, convened by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, called for an overhaul of the Common Core learning standards and for changes to the state tests associated with them.

The recent changes were an abrupt reversal of state education policy. Since 2010, the state education department and the Board of Regents, under the leadership of Merryl Tisch, held steadfast in its belief in the Common Core standards.

But the governor's task force, as with other panels before it, found that the standards were rolled out too quickly, without proper training or materials, and that it was unfair at this time to use student performance on new state tests in teacher performance reviews.

Those sentiments only increased this year after Cuomo proposed increasing the weight given to test scores in teacher evaluations. A couple of months later, in April, the number of families opting out of state tests increased dramatically.

The changes approved Tuesday mean student test results can only be "advisory" for teachers and would not factor into an official evaluation until the beginning of the 2019-20 school year. In the meantime, teachers will be rated on classroom observations and local measures of student performance.

The lone board member to vote against the proposal was Tisch, chancellor of the Board of Regents, who expressed fear that the moratorium would lead to a permanent de-coupling of student performance on state tests from evaluations. 

Cuomo did not release a response to the teacher evaluation vote but a spokeswoman, Dani Lever, said the governor was reviewing the measure in addition to the task force report released last week.