Assessment Approvals and Updates

The most recent addition to federally approved tests is the CASAS Reading GOALS 2 series. Reading GOALS 2 has been federally approved for 7 years, through May 8, 2032. The process that we follow in Minnesota is that test administrators and practitioners review the test and, through SPARC, make a recommendation of approval to the state staff. The state staff will then add the test to the assessment policy, and notify the field, at which time the test can be used for reporting purposes.

The tests are currently being reviewed, and a recommendation will be made at the July SPARC meeting. The tests will be able to be used for reporting in Minnesota once they are added to the Minnesota Assessment Policy, and the SiD staff has added them to the state database. Watch for a letter to the field that will go out from the state office to formalize the use of Reading GOALS 2.

In the meantime, approval for Reading GOALS (which had been set to expire) has been extended through June 30, 2026. This will allow for a smooth transition to Reading GOALS 2. There should be no disruption in testing for programs.

If programs have funds that they want to use to purchase tests prior to the end of the fiscal 2025 year, they can be assured that these tests will be quickly approved and eligible for reporting in Minnesota before the end of the summer.

To learn more about the tests, check out the CASAS Reading GOALS 2 page on the CASAS website. There are links to blueprints, grade level equivalents, and sample test items. Additional information is available on test length, timing, and scale score ranges. Information as to ordering the tests, and their cost can be found in the CASAS catalog.

As previously announced, the TABE 13&14 series has been federally approved for a period of 3 years, through June 20, 2027. These tests have also been approved for reporting in Minnesota. Additionally, the approval for the use of TABE 11&12 for reporting purposes has been extended through June 30, 2026. This allows for ease of transition, especially for programs that use paper tests, as the shipping of the paper tests has been delayed.

A good way to learn more about the TABE 13&14 assessments is to view the Administrator Certification slides. If your program is ready to administer the tests, and has existing 11&12 licenses, you can use this form to convert those licenses to 13&14.

For those programs that prefer to use paper tests, use this form to order. It is important to note that, for TABE 13&14, there is no answer key for hand scoring. The only way to score the paper tests is to: (1) use the official TABE 13&14 answer sheets which can be scored via a scanner using the TABE scoring portal or; (2) use TABE official Scoreze answer sheets.

There is additional information regarding such topics as “What’s New with TABE 13&14”, test administration times, blueprints, post-testing, and grade-based scale score guidance at the  https://tabetest.com/ website. Follow the path Resources >> TABE 13&14 and select the document that you are interested in.

Below you can see the approval status of all ABE standardized assessments being used in Minnesota.

Below are excerpts from the Minnesota 2024-2025 Assessment Policy that pertain to the Best Plus, CASAS and TABE series.

NOTE: A correction was made to the CASAS chart on 6/17/25 (see yellow highlight).