Dive Brief:

• As District of Columbia Public Schools makes changes to its Common Core-aligned tests, teacher evaluations will not be tied to student scores for the 2014-15 school year.  
• The announcement, made Thursday by D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson, was based on the desire to be fair to teachers since a baseline and the kinks of the test have still not been worked out.  
• Test scores were set to account for 35% of a teacher's evaluation in the district, which began tying test scores to teacher evaluations under the guidance of Henderson's predecessor, Michelle Rhee.  

Dive Insight:

While individuals have been calling for a slow-down to the implementation of high-stakes decisions tied to the relatively new Common Core standards, not much has been done thus far. That is until last week, when the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation jumped on the bandwagon and also called for a temporary suspension of teacher evaluations tied to the standards.  

D.C. is not alone in this decision. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo presented a bill Thursday that would delay teacher evaluations tied to test scores for two years. Regardless, the U.S. Department of Education is not a fan of the decision.  

"Although we applaud District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) for their continued commitment to rigorous evaluation and support for their teachers, we know there are many who looked to DCPS as a pacesetter who will be disappointed with their desire to slow down," Raymonde Charles an Education Department spokeswoman told the AP in an emailed statement.