Laura Meckler is national education writer for The Washington Post, where she covers national trends and federal policy. She came to the Post from the Wall Street Journal, where she covered immigration and changing American demographics, the White House and health policy, as well as three presidential campaigns. Before that, she was on the national staff of the Associated Press, based in Washington, where she wrote about health and social policy and politics. Before coming to Washington, she covered state government in Columbus, Ohio. She got her start covering everything from schools and cops to the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame festival at The Repository in Canton, Ohio, about 50 miles south of her hometown of Cleveland.

Laura graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, and serves on the board that oversees her college newspaper. She was a 2004 Nieman fellow at Harvard University, and in 1999, she won the Livingston Award for National Reporting, a prize given to journalists under age 35, for her coverage of organ donation and transplantation issues. Her media appearances have included CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, PBS and NPR. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and two sons.