Under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and now the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), states are required to assess every student at least once in high school in reading or language arts, mathematics, and science, and some states have chosen to assess students more frequently. The passage of ESSA gives states a new opportunity in how they approach high school assessment. Most significantly, it will allow states to use "nationally-recognized high school academic assessments" such as college entrance exams (ACT or SAT) as their sole high school assessment for accountability purposes, and give states the option to permit individual districts to do so in lieu of the state high school test. States now face important decisions about which high school assessments to use and for what purposes. The purpose of this brief is to help state policymakers make sense of these issues and identify key action steps to consider as they make decisions about high school assessments.