Introduction to Twin Pandemics: How a Global Health Crisis and Persistent Racial Injustices are Impacting Educational Assessment

Abstract

At the end of 2020 we put out a call for full-length empirical papers and short conceptual contributions examining how the coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic and racial inequities were affecting the educational assessment of students, either separately or in combination, as the health crisis was viewed as a factor intersecting with and exacerbating existing racial inequities in educational systems. The papers in this special issue attend to such issues as how challenges implementing virtual standardized testing during the coronavirus pandemic impacted academic performance, how educational and assessment experiences may differ for diverse groups of school-age students, and how traditional assessment approaches are being reconsidered in response to mounting research evidence and growing concerns around enduring social and racial inequities faced by Black, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous, and other nonwhite citizens and communities. The papers offer needed empirical evidence, innovative methodological approaches, and theoretical and substantive examinations of the effects of the twin pandemics.