Valerie Strauss is an education writer who blogs as The Answer Sheet. She came to The Washington Post in 1988 as the assistant foreign editor for Asia just before the Soviet Empire fell and Tiananmen Square exploded (which seems like ancient history to her two teenage daughters). After six years she moved to Metro and covered various education beats (D.C. schools and too many superintendents to count on one hand; higher education, etc.), started the Schools & Learning Page with Jay Mathews, and then agreed to try blogging (despite, at the time, hating the word “blog”). She would have liked to be an astronaut if math had not been such a crucible.