As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread across the United States and around the world, school systems everywhere are in crisis management, with education leaders and teachers struggling to provide continuous instruction via combinations of in-person, virtual, and hybrid learning modes. A fundamental and familiar question centers on the rationale for assessment. What are its goals and, in particular, can assessment advance teaching and learning and reduce educational inequities? In the near term, what are the best "uses" of assessment in 2021? To address these questions, the National Academy of Education (NAEd) convened a group of scholars, policy leaders, and educators for a focused discussion of the "how" and "why" of testing in both the contexts of the special circumstances of 2021 and beyond. This summary report begins where the roundtable conversation kept returning, with a description of the purposes and intended users of different types of assessments. Next, it discusses inequities in education and implications for the appropriate uses of assessment. Then the report addresses the 2021 end-of-year "summative" assessments: assuming that school districts will administer such assessments, it points out caveats to keep in mind regarding test administration, interpretation, and intended and unintended uses of test results. Finally, looking beyond 2020-2021 end-of-year assessments, the report discusses themes that emerged, including ensuring that assessment systems are balanced and equitable, reframing accountability from a deficit lens to an improvement perspective, and expanding assessment literacy.