In a vote that some described as “historic,” the Kansas State Board of Education voted Tuesday to begin a complete overhaul of the way the state accredits public schools and holds them accountable for meeting performance goals.

On a vote of 8-2, the board agreed to officially scrap the current system, known as Quality Performance Accreditation, or QPA, which has been in place since 1992, and to begin implementing a new system called “Kansas Education Systems Accreditation,” or KESA.

“This is the most important thing we do,” said board chairman Jim McNiece, a Wichita Republican. “Most people don’t see it. Historically, it’s at the root of why we have a state board: accreditation of our schools.”

Kansas lawmakers directed the state board to adopt the QPA system in 1992. It was part of the same bill that also overhauled the school finance system, shifting primary responsibility for funding schools to the Legislature and adopting a uniform, per-pupil funding formula that was financed through a uniform statewide property tax levy.

QPA was based on a growing trend in education theory at the time that held that schools should be judged based largely on student outcomes, rather than on the basis of various “inputs” such as the size of their libraries or their student-teacher ratios.

The federal government later adopted a similar model under the No Child Left Behind law, which made student test scores a condition for receiving federal education money.

Under those programs, individual schools were graded largely on the basis of how well students performed on standardized tests and how much improvement the schools demonstrated over time.

Schools that failed to meet certain benchmarks were placed under heightened scrutiny, with progressively increasing sanctions if they failed to come up to standards. Eventually, schools could be ordered to replace their entire staff and leadership team and, in extreme cases, lose their accreditation.

The biggest change under KESA, state officials said, is that Kansas will no longer accredit individual schools. Instead, it will accredit entire districts or systems as a whole, including private and religious school systems that voluntarily choose to take part in the accreditation program.

The KESA system also goes beyond standardized test scores by examining districts on a range of other criteria known as the “Five Rs,” which cover such things as the academic rigor of its curriculum, the professional culture within the organization and the level of engagement it has with parents, families and the surrounding community.

Also, districts will be accredited on five-year cycles instead of undergoing annual reviews. During those cycles, districts themselves will conduct internal reviews, decide which of Five Rs they will focus on during that period, and establish goals that will be monitored and measured by external review teams.

Deputy Education Commissioner Brad Neuenswander said Tuesday’s vote will trigger the first phase of the transition, which involves a yearlong process of drafting new department regulations and requesting the Legislature to authorize certain statutory changes.

He said the department hopes to have the new system fully in place by the summer of 2017.