The Minnesota Assessments are designed to measure achievement towards meeting the Minnesota Academic Standards (for the standards-based accountability assessments) and to measure progress towards meeting the WIDA English Language Development Standards (for English language proficiency accountability assessments).
- For the standards-based accountability assessments, refer to the Academic Standards webpage and the Frequently Asked Questions about Minnesota’s K–12 Academic Standards for more information about the Minnesota Academic Standards. In addition, the test specifications indicate which strands, sub-strands, standards, and benchmarks will be assessed on the test and in what proportions.
The Minnesota Assessments are criterion-referenced assessments, which means they measure performance against a fixed set of criteria: the Minnesota Academic Standards or the WIDA English Language Development Standards. Criterion-referenced assessments are used to determine mastery of concepts and skills and to measure progress toward goals and objectives. While criterion-referenced tests may provide information about how well students have mastered certain concepts, they alone do not illustrate the whole picture of what a student has learned. These assessments provide one data point that should be considered in the context of additional evidence of student learning like student projects and district and classroom assessments.
