An update from Academic Standards, Instruction and Assessment

Aug. 20, 2025

Important Dates

Aug. 29: Public release of final assessment and accountability results on MDE website; ISRs arrive in districts (Reading and Mathematics MCA and MTAS; ACCESS and WIDA Alternate ACCESS)

Sept. 5: Deadline to submit reimbursement requests in GRR

Quick Links

• Accountability Appeals
• Final Individual Student Reports Delivery and Reporting Updates
• Resources for New District Assessment Coordinators
• Early Student-Level Results for ACCESS and WIDA Alternate ACCESS
• The Minnesota Questions Tool – Reading MCA-IV

Accountability Appeals

The window to appeal accountability data is five business days, including the day of the secure release. The acceptable grounds for appeal are calculation error and extenuating circumstances disrupting the usability of data. Appeals can be sent to mde.essa@state.mn.us.

Accountability data will be released alongside assessment data on Aug. 29.

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Final Individual Student Reports Delivery and Reporting Updates

Final Individual Student Reports (ISRs) for Reading and Mathematics MCA/MTAS and ACCESS and WIDA Alternate ACCESS are scheduled to arrive in districts on Friday, Aug. 29. (The majority of student reports will be delivered on Friday, Aug. 29, but some shipments may arrive Tuesday, Sept. 2.) Note: Due to additional steps required for a new assessment, reporting for Science MCA and Alternate MCA is delayed until later this fall.

Since ISRs contain private student data, it is important for districts to ensure someone is available to receive the reports and secure them until distribution. The final reports shipment will be sent to districts, and each school will have its own box labeled with the school name. For nonpublic schools, final reports will be packaged and shipped directly to each school.

Electronic versions of ISRs will also be available in PearsonAccess Next (MCA/MTAS) and WIDA AMS (ACCESS/WIDA Alternate ACCESS) on Aug. 29.

Changes for MCA and MTAS/Alternate MCA ISRs

For Reading, Mathematics, and Science MCA and MTAS/Alt MCA, all three subjects will be provided as separate ISRs rather than combined into one ISR as in past years. To maintain formatting consistency, ISRs will continue to be separated by subject as the statewide assessments transition from MCA-III and MTAS to MCA-IV and Alt MCA in the upcoming years (reading in 2025-26 and mathematics in 2027-28). 

There will be two separate shipments of ISRs for districts that chose to receive paper copies. Reading and Mathematics MCA and MTAS ISRs will arrive on Aug. 29, and Science MCA and Alt MCA ISRs will be delivered in the fall. MDE will communicate expected dates in a future Assessment Update when those details are finalized. Student results labels will continue to contain results for all three subjects on one label; as a result, labels will arrive at the same time as science ISRs for districts that chose to receive paper copies.

Two shipments give districts flexibility for ISR distribution. For example:

• Reading and mathematics reports can be provided earlier if it works better for the district process of sharing results.
• Districts may also choose to hold all ISRs until science is received so they can be provided to families at the same time (for example, in one mailing or at fall conferences).

Any combination of distribution timelines is acceptable but all ISRs should be distributed by Dec. 1. When results are delayed due to standard setting (as they were for Science MCA and Alt MCA this year), efforts should be made to provide the results to parents/guardians as close to Dec. 1 as possible, but there is flexibility for this requirement for those assessments.

Two shipments and separate ISRs may also require some additional logistical planning and changes to how ISRs have been distributed previously. Regardless of distribution timelines, staff must be available to receive and secure ISRs when delivered as they contain private student data. If ISRs will be held for later distribution, secure storage must be planned for.

Changes for Future Reports and Resources

As part of a continuous improvement process, MDE is redesigning existing reports and resources to ensure we are supporting assessment data needs of educators, students, families, and policymakers, while meeting state and federal requirements. With the changes that will continue across the assessment program over the next few years, the report redesign process will take multiple years to fully implement, meaning some reports and resources will not be available for the first year(s) of new assessments:

• Benchmark Reports will only be provided for Reading and Mathematics MCA in 2025. Historical Science MCA reports are still available in PearsonAccess Next.
• The Subscore Report will be updated to include information for Science MCA-IV. The Subscore Report will be unavailable starting Friday, Aug. 29 as results for all subjects are loaded into the system. The report will be available later this fall with the specific date provided in a future Assessment Update. 
• The Longitudinal Reports and Historical Student Data features in PearsonAccess Next will not be loaded with 2025 data. However, data from previous years is still available in PearsonAccess Next.

As part of the transition process, MDE also needs to update many of our reporting resources to meet the needs of new assessments. Key resources for families and staff are being prioritized, and other resources, like the Interpretive Guide, will no longer be provided. The Assessment Update will include links to resources as they are available. Contact mde.testing@state.mn.us for specific resource questions.

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Resources for New District Assessment Coordinators

As we transition to a new academic year, please ensure that District Assessment Coordinator (DAC) contact information is current in the Minnesota Department of Education-Organization Reference Glossary (MDE-ORG). All contact information in MDE-ORG is updated and maintained by the district’s Site Verification Coordinator (SVC). You can look up the SVC for your district in MDE-ORG. If the SVC has any questions about the process, they can contact mde.school-verify@state.mn.us.

Newly appointed DACs should review the New District Assessment Coordinators: Getting Access document under the District Assessment Coordinator Resources expandable header on the District Resources page of the MDE website to ensure they are designated as the DAC and are granted access to MDE and service provider systems. MDE will post additional resources and offer trainings to support new DACs this fall. More information will be provided in a future Assessment Update.

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Early Student-Level Results for ACCESS and WIDA Alternate ACCESS

Early student-level results for ACCESS and WIDA Alternate ACCESS will be available for download in Test WES until Sept. 1. The final results were included in the embargoed District and School Student Results (DSR and SSR) files released on July 29.

Please note that early student-level results do not reflect any changes made during Posttest Editing. Districts that wish to retain this preliminary data (for example, for a student whose score was invalidated because the student was not designated as EL in enrollment data) must download and save these results by Sept. 1.

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The Minnesota Questions Tool – Reading MCA-IV

The Minnesota Questions Tool (MQT) provides access to released questions from past Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) and MTAS/Alternate MCA (Alt MCA) for reading, mathematics, and science. This tool is intended to support educators in understanding how the academic standards are assessed on the MCA and MTAS/Alt MCA, to help identify student misconceptions, and to show assessment of student learning at varied Depth of Knowledge (DOK) levels. Released questions are aligned to benchmarks in the relevant Minnesota Academic Standards in English Language Arts, Mathematics, or Science:

The Reading MCA questions in the tool have recently been realigned to the 2020 Minnesota Academic Standards in English Language Arts and which will be assessed on the MCA-IV.

Note that all mathematics questions in the current tool are aligned to standards assessed on the MCA-III. They can be found under “Test Type: MCA.” As MDE releases questions aligned to standards assessed on the Mathematics MCA-IV, those questions will be found under “Test Type: MCA-IV.”

If you have questions about the MQT, contact mde.testing@state.mn.us.

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Academic Standards, Instruction and Assessment
Minnesota Department of Education
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