Dr. Cathy Vatterott is an associate professor of education at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, where she trains preservice middle school teachers. She is a former middle school and high school teacher and middle school principal. She is the author of numerous articles about education, including "Homework Myths" and "There's Something Wrong with Homework," and two books, Academic Success Through Empowering Students (National Middle School Association, 1999) and Becoming a Middle Level Teacher: Student-Focused Teaching of Early Adolescents (McGraw-Hill, 2007).

She first became interested in homework as the frustrated parent of a 5th grader with learning disabilities. Since then, she has presented her homework research to more than 6,000 educators and parents in the United States, Canada, and Europe. She has conducted professional development institutes about homework for ASCD since 2004. She has been interviewed as a homework expert for articles appearing in such publications as Parents magazine, Better Homes and Gardens magazine, Child magazine, Working Mother magazine, the Globe and Mail (Canada's national newspaper), and numerous U.S. newspapers and educational Web sites, as well as for radio and television programs. Some of her presentation materials and unpublished writings about homework can be found at her Web site, www.homeworklady.com. She can be reached through her Web site or at Vatterott@umsl.edu.