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Robert J. Blendon is Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis at the School of Public Health. He directs the Harvard Opinion Research Program which focuses on the better understanding of public knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about major domestic public policy issues. He also codirects *The Washington Post*/Harvard University/Kaiser Family Foundation survey project and a project for National Public Radio and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation on American attitudes toward health and social policy. Prior to his Harvard appointment, he was senior vice president at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In addition, he has served as a senior faculty member for the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Governors Association, and the U.S. Congress Committee on Ways and Means. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and a doctoral degree in health policy from the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.

Andrew Carroll is the editor of several bestselling books, including *Letters of a Nation*, *Behind the Lines*, and *War Letters*, which was made into a PBS documentary. He is also the editor of *Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front, in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families*, based on the National Endowment for the Arts national initiative of the same name. *Operation Homecoming*, the documentary, appeared on PBS starting in 2007. Carrolls most recent book is *Grace Under Fire: Letters of Faith in Times of War*, published by Doubleday and WaterBrook Press. Carroll is the founder and director of the Legacy Project, a national, all-volunteer initiative that works to honor and remember US troops and veterans by preserving their wartime correspondence. To date, the Legacy Project has received more than 80,000 never-before-seen letters and e-mails from every military conflict in American history. Carroll is also the co-founder, with the late Nobel Laureate Joseph Brodsky, of the American Poetry & Literacy Project. Carroll's efforts have been profiled on *Oprah*, *NBC's Nightly News*, *FOX News*, *CNN*, *The History Channel* (two different documentaries), *C-Span*, *National Public Radio*, *CBS Sunday Morning*, the *Today Show*, *Good Morning America*, and *Nightline* (which devoted a full broadcast to the Legacy Project). Carroll was also featured as a "Person of the Week" on *ABC's World News Tonight*. Carroll has also been a contributing editor and/or writer to many local and national publications, including *Guideposts*, *Time*, the *New Yorker*, and *National Geographic*. A 1993 magna cum laude graduate of Columbia University, Carroll has received, among other accolades, the DARs Medal of Honor; The Order of Saint Maurice, bestowed by the National Infantryman's Association; and The Free Spirit Award, presented by the Freedom Forum.

William Bulger was first elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1960, and elected to the state senate in 1970 representing the First Suffolk District. He served as president of the Massachusetts Senate for 18 years until he was appointed to president of the University of Massachusetts which he led until 2003.William Bulger was first elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1960, and elected to the state senate in 1970 representing the First Suffolk District. He served as president of the Massachusetts Senate for 18 years until he was appointed to president of the University of Massachusetts which he led until 2003.

Annalee Newitz is a freelance writer and a contributing editor at *Wired* magazine. In 2004 and 2005, she was the policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Based on her doctoral research at Berkeley, her forthcoming book, *Pretend We're Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture*, is about capitalism and monster movies. Formerly, Newitz was the culture editor at* The San Francisco Bay Guardian*. After being named a Knight Science Journalism Fellow, she spent the 2002-2003 academic year as a research fellow at MIT. Her work has appeared in magazines and papers such as *Wired*, *Popular Science*, *Salon*, *The San Francisco Bay Guardian*, and several academic journals and anthologies. Newitz's writing focuses on pop culture and technology, from the politics of open source software to hacker subcultures. Her weekly syndicated column, Techsploitation, is about the ways that media mutates and reiterates the problems of everyday life. Newitz's next book will deal with the cultural impact of technology.

Charlie Anders is the author of the novel *Choir Boy* (Soft Skull Press, 2005) and the co-editor, with Annalee Newitz, of the anthology *She's Such A Geek* (Seal Press, 2006) and the science fiction blog io9. She is the publisher of *other magazine*, the "magazine of pop culture and politics for the new outcasts". She was winner of a 2005 Lambda Literary Award. Her writing has appeared in Salon.com, *The Wall Street Journal*, *Publishers Weekly*, *The San Francisco Bay Guardian*, and the *New York Press*, as well as in two dozen anthologies, including *Pills Chills Thrills & Heartache*, *It's All Good! and Paraspheres: New Wave Fabulist Fiction*. She is also the presenter of Writers With Drinks, a monthly literary night held in San Francisco featuring local writers and performers.

Jelani Mandara is a Family and Developmental Psychologist. His primary research examines the nature and effects of socialization, a father's involvement, and how they interact with gender, race, and SES to impact youths' academic and social development. His current projects examine the effects of parenting styles on Black, Latino, and White American youth's academic achievement, sexual activity and behavioral problems. He is also in the process of creating a comprehensive and culturally relevant measure of parenting called "The Socialization and Family Environment Scale" (SAFE). Further interests include socialization differences between teachers and parents, the achievement gap, and typological or person-centered research methods. He regularly teaches courses and conducts workshops on African American child and adolescent development. He and his wife, Keisha, are known to test his theories on their three sons, with promising results thus far.

Christopher T. Cross is chairman of Cross & Joftus, LLC, an education-policy consulting firm. He is also a senior fellow with the Center for Education Policy and a Distinguished Senior Fellow with the Education Commission of the States. In addition Mr. Cross serves as a consultant to the Broad Foundation and the C.S. Mott Foundation. He is a member of the advisory board for the School Evaluation Service program of Standard and Poor's. From 1994 to 2002 he served as president and chief executive officer of the Council for Basic Education (CBE). Before joining CBE, Mr. Cross served as Director of the Education Initiative of The Business Roundtable and as Assistant Secretary for Educational Research and Improvement in the US Department of Education. Mr. Cross has a BA degree from Whittier College and a MA in Government from California State University, Los Angeles.

Mr. Jennings founded the Center on Education Policy in January 1995. From 1967 to 1994, he served as subcommittee staff director and then as general counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Education and Labor. In these positions, he was involved in nearly every major education debate held at the national level, including the reauthorizations of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Vocational Education Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Higher Education Act, the National School Lunch Act, the Child Nutrition Act, and the authorization of the Goals 2000: Educate America Act. Mr. Jennings serves on the board of trustees of the Educational Testing Service, and has served on the Title I Independent Review Panel, the Pew Forum on Standards-Based Reform, the Maryland Academic Intervention Steering Committee, and the Maryland Visionary Panel. He holds an A.B. from Loyola University and a J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law, and is a member of several legal bars, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

Akela Reason joined the faculty of the School of Art and Design at Georgia State University in 2007, after teaching as a lecturer since 2005.

Dr. Sternberg has been the Commissioner of Education for the Connecticut State Department of Education (SDE) since 2003. She has dedicated much of her career in education to the SDE as Associate Commissioner in the Division of Teaching and Learning for over 12 years (1992- 2003); as Director in the Division of Curriculum and Professional Development from 1985-1992; and as Bureau Chief in Curriculum and Staff Development from 1980-1985. As Commissioner of Education and Chief Executive Officer of the State Board of Education, Dr. Sternberg is responsible for over 350 employees at the central office and approximately 2000 staff members in the States technical high schools. She oversees public education in the States 166 local public school districts, 17 regional technical high schools, 3 endowed and incorporated academies, 12 charter schools and 39 full and part-time magnet schools. She is also responsible for developing, recommending and implementing the components of a $2.0 billion state education budget. As the first woman to serve as Commissioner since the inception of the position in 1838, Dr. Sternberg has continued to promote programs and strategies for improving teaching and learning in the state. She is the key author of the standards piece of the Education Enhancement Act of 1986, nationally recognized legislation designed to attract and retain high-quality teachers to Connecticut. She directed the development of the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) and the Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT), considered the most effective in the country. She was instrumental in developing the first school-by-school database in the nation in the form of the Strategic School Profiles and she is responsible for the development of The Connecticut Framework: K-12 Curricular Goals and Standards in 11 core curriculum areas.

Amy Whorf McGuiggan is a freelance writer and the author of *My Provincetown* and *Christmas in New England*. She lives in Hingham, MA. She is also author of *Take Me Out to the Ball Game*.