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Liz Bowie (state education)

With two kids in public high schools, education is a subject I live every day.

So when a source talks about an ECR, I know that homework assignment last night was an Extended Constructed Response, better known to average people as English essay.

I know that school lunches are "disgusting" because I am the one slapping sandwiches together at 6:30 every morning. (Yes, I know I should make my children to do this the night before.) And if I am writing about changes in the teaching of math, it might be the case that I have heard a teacher or two complain that there is no way she can get through all the math curriculum.

While my experience as a parent has informed my reporting on education for the past decade, I never mix work and home. My children's pet peeves do not become stories.

I have been a reporter at The Sun for the past 20 years or so. I began covering education in 1997, just after a reform of the Baltimore schools began. After many years on that beat, I spent most of a year writing a series about two homeless boys who graduated from Lake Clifton High School. For the past two years I have covered state education issues.

If you are a parent or educator anywhere from Wicomico to Garrett counties, I would love to hear from you. I am not just looking for stories about education policy but also quirky trends of the moment from cell phone use in schools to the obsession with Facebook.

Gina Davis (Baltimore County schools)

When I was in elementary school, a teacher told me that someday I would make a good lawyer. Apparently I was asking her too many questions.

Little did either of us know that one day I'd be getting paid to ask questions, then more questions and, oh, some more questions.

Some people might say I'm nosey, but I say I'm inquisitive.

Being a reporter is a bit like getting to go to school every day. With each article that I venture to write, I almost always get an opportunity to learn something new, or expand my knowledge of something I already know.

Since I was a girl growing up in Austin, Texas, and later in Chicago and Virginia Beach, I have loved to read. Curled up with a good book in the beanbag at the school library, I could see the world through the characters who came to life in my imagination. To this day, I will sometimes find myself not wanting to reach the end of a really good book because I've grown attached to the characters. I almost always wonder what might've happened next had the book included another chapter or two.

I have worked and lived in the Baltimore region since 1993, when I was hired as a copy editor for The Sun. A couple years later, I became a design editor.

A few years ago, I was itching for a change when I accepted an opportunity to try my hand at reporting. It quickly blossomed into a labor of love. I covered schools in Carroll County for two years before coming to cover schools in Baltimore County in October 2006.

My job as a reporter puts me in a unique position to ask hard questions and expect straight answers. Our communities deserve the strongest schools possible. It's my task to be the public's ears and eyes to monitor how successfully the system is striving to achieve that ideal.

I also thoroughly enjoy the privilege I have to witness - and write about - the wonderful strides that students are making and the full range of hope and promise that is alive and well in our schools. I believe in our obligation, as a society in general, to expect schools that are safe environments where true life-long learning is inspired and enabled.

Gadi Dechter (higher education)

The last guy covering higher education painted a rather alluring picture of the job when I was hired: lots of time hanging around picturesque college quads, talking to students and scholars about books, science, ideas and so forth. The reality is rather different.

I spend more time with administrators than with faculty, and more time parsing statistics than reading research papers.

I'm hoping this blog turns, in part, into an extended conversation with the individual people behind the numbers and trends. (I harbor no hope it will return me to the lecture hall, so I can make up the wasted youth of my own bright college years.) I've been reporting on colleges and universities since July 2006, when I moved to the daily from City Paper, the Baltimore alt-weekly. I actually moved to Baltimore to get myself some higher education, at the Writing Seminars master's program at Johns Hopkins University.

Before then, I squandered four perfectly good years at Yale, getting a degree in "literature," but reading mostly inscrutable papers by obscure theorists about allegedly great books I never bothered to read. Good times, though. My whiskey: Pikesville rye. My hero: Evan Dando. My cats: Edith and Madeleine.

Arin Gencer (Carroll County schools)

My journalism career began in fifth grade, when I served as editor of the illustrious Nothing But News Newspaper, a short-lived publication that sparked my interest in the news business. Up until then, I'd wanted to write books or teach. In choosing journalism, I think I've found a comfortable middle ground, getting the best of both fields.

An important aside: I'm from the great state of Texas, raised mostly in Dallas. (Please, no hate e-mail. I am, at best, only a fair-weather Cowboys fan.) I've been an education reporter at the Sun since October 2006, and am happiest when I'm in a school and talking to students. This is probably because school looks like fun from this side, where I can participate without dreading homework or tests. But I freely admit that I am something of a nerd.... I look forward to what I might find out in a classroom, and delight in books.

That's why I signed up for more learning after getting my degree from Emory University in Atlanta. While working on my masters in New York, I hunted down stories about politics, religion and science. I also enjoyed more beef patties and samosas than I had a right to consume.

I discovered my passion for writing about education while working at the Los Angeles Times, where I had opportunities to report on K-12 and higher education. That interest brought me here. I've had the pleasure of covering Carroll County schools, getting to know students and teachers, and grappling with the complexities of education at the county and state levels.

It's a lot to take in, but this nerd thrives on learning new things.

And she hopes to hear - and learn - from you as the adventure continues.

Ruma Kumar (Anne Arundel County schools)

You could say education was in my blood. My mother's one of those measurement and evaluation experts education reporters turn to every time a school system (or a state!) has what we reporters like to call a "data dump," that deluge of state test score numbers every summer and fall. I watched her demystify data for teachers, for principals, for central office staff in Land O' Lakes (no, not the place that makes the butter), a suburb of Tampa where I grew up. Except in those early years, her talk of regression analyses and program evaluation didn't make much sense to me or my sister. Years later, though, we realized she was helping teachers become better teachers. And without design or plan, my little sister and I followed in her footsteps. My sister became a chemistry teacher in a charter school in north Philadelphia. I have been writing about public education for five years now. In our ways, both of us are trying to demystify people, too, just as we had seen our mother do for years. My sister's trying to demystify the process of balancing chemical formulas, and I try to breathe reason into the confusion that surrounds federal mandates like No Child Left Behind.

In 1999, I moved to Memphis to cover public education straight out of journalism school at the University of Florida in Gainsesville (go Gators!). I started out covering public education in North Mississippi, which still struggles with the church-state separation in schools. After a two-year stint there, I moved on to covering education in Memphis, diving into the challenges in the 17th largest district in the nation, writing about its struggles as an urban district trying to raise the bar amid bitter politicking between a revolving door of superintendents and school board. I spend four great years doing that.

My husband and I left Memphis last year, when he joined an obstetrics practice in Annapolis. I joined The Baltimore Sun in January. For the past 10 months, I've covered Anne Arundel schools. I see pockets of Memphis here in Annapolis, Glen Burnie, Brooklyn Park such poverty amid such wealth. It's an interesting dichotomy I'm still learning and trying to understand. Stay tuned to this blog for my observations on schools, students, parents as I continue my lesson in all things Anne Arundel.

Sara Neufeld (Baltimore City schools)

I stumbled onto the education beat in 2000, fresh out of Northwestern University's journalism school. I was an intern at the San Jose Mercury News, a suburban schools job was open temporarily, and since it was summer, the editors figured I couldn't mess up too badly.

Here I am, 2,800 miles and more than seven years later, still at it. And looking back, I don't know why I hadn't set out to cover education earlier. As a teenager, the high school newspaper was only my second calling. My first was babysitting. In California, I spent two and a half years chasing after corruption and inadequacies in the schools in East Palo Alto, a little city that's a highway overpass and yet and a world away from Palo Alto, home to Stanford and some of the nation's best public schools. But I'm a native of Connecticut, and I promised my family I wouldn't stay on the West Coast forever. In Baltimore, at least my grandma can call without having to feel bad that she forgot the time difference and it's 5 a.m. I started at The Sun in March 2003 and covered Baltimore County schools before moving to city education in July 2005.

Other basics: I've been a vegetarian since age 9, a decision that drove both my parents to become health nuts as they tried to figure out what to feed me. (My little sister once wrote a college essay about how she couldn't wait for the dorm food.) My mom, once an elementary school teacher and later a party planner, decided on her 50th birthday to become a yoga instructor. Following her lead, I recently completed a yoga teacher training program myself.

I'm grateful to my yoga practice for keeping me sane amid the commotion of a newsroom and the drama of North Avenue. I'm grateful to all of you for the conversation and exchange of ideas that I know we'll have on this blog.

Madison Park (Harford County schools)

No, I'm not a street, a condo association or a park. And yes, this is my name.

About me: I grew up in Orange County, in southern California where my diet consisted of fish tacos and In-N-Out burgers. I went to school at U.C. Berkeley (Go Bears!) and Northwestern University (Go Wildcats!) and graduated with my B.S. in '06.

From rafting in the Nile in Uganda to backpacking in Mozambique, I've always been up for a new adventure. And I'm now at the Sun covering Harford County. I'd love to write something long and flowy about the oodles of journalism experience I have. But to be honest, I'm a newbie.

I write about Harford cities (there's like three), cops, courts and education.

Feel free to e-mail me: madison.park@baltsun.com

John-John Williams IV (Howard County schools)

Where do I begin? Let's start with my name. That seems to always be a source of confusion.

John-John Williams IV is my birth name. No, it's not a fake name; no, I did not add the hyphen or the Roman numeral; no, I don't go by JJ, John squared, or double J; and no, my name was not inspired by the Kennedys.

I'm the son of an educator. My mother recently retired as an elementary school principal in my hometown of Syracuse, N.Y. I think I get my writing genes from her; she was the editor-in-chief of her college newspaper.

I'm addicted to television. Ugly Betty, America's Next Top Model, Heroes and Grey's Anatomy currently top my list. Although Grey's has been getting on my last nerve recently. Anywho, When I'm not working at the paper, you can find me in the kitchen. I have a side party planning/catering business that keeps me happy.

I love to travel, watch movies and play sports. This is starting to feel like a singles ad.

I graduated from Howard University in 2001. I have worked at The Sun since November 2005. Previously, I worked as an education reporter at The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, and as a public safety reporter at The Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, S.D.