My colleagues and I at last week's interviews with the Seattle Public Schools superintendent finalists had our theories about why the district split us into three 15-minute slots, not the least of which being that the district was afraid a media free-for-all might scare some finalists off.

Well, if that was the strategy, it didn't work. Over the weekend two of the three finalists—Sandra Husk and Steven Enoch—have withdrawn their names from consideration. That leaves only Jose Banda in the running.

Banda was my favorite of the three for reasons that had more to do with personality than with experience or ideology. I just think that he's the one who offers the most promise at building consensus and stability, two things the district desperately needs.

But it's a little disturbing that Seattle is finding it so difficult to attract candidates for its top posts.

UPDATE: On KUOW this afternoon, School Board president Michael DeBell revealed that Banda was kinda-sorta unofficially offered the job last night, whereas Husk didn't drop out until this morning. So perhaps her withdrawal was more face-saving than anything else. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

• Goldy | The Stranger
• If there is a politician among the three Seattle school superintendent finalists, it's Sandra Husk

I'm not sure if Sandra Husk is the best of the three superintendent finalists being trotted before the public this week but the consensus of the small group of journalists conducting the interviews is that the school board probably thinks so. Saving the best for last, and all that.

Maybe.

Husk, who heads the 40,000-student-strong Salem-Keizer School District in Washington's Mexico, certainly has the qualifications to run a district the size of Seattle, and she probably provided the most specific and detailed answers of the three. Or maybe the third time around we were just well practiced at asking the right questions? Hard to say.

Like José Banda and Steven Enoch before her, Husk also passed The Stranger litmus test, giving non-shill answers to questions on the corporate reform agenda of charter schools, Teach for America (TFA), and standardized testing.

When asked if charters fit well in Seattle, Husk immediately responded "Evidently it doesn't," pointing to the three charter schools ballot measures that have been shot down by voters. "Whether you're a charter or non-charter," says Husk, you can do the things necessary to achieve success. "Obviously it's kind of a nonissue here in Washington," she says of charter schools, "and not one I would spend a lot of time being concerned about."

She's done her homework.

On TFA Husk adopted Banda's tact, claiming she's not done a lot of research on it as it's "not been a major conversation point" in the three districts she's led. Then she flaunted her vocabulary, citing "a strong pedagogy" as one of the attributes of a successful teacher (that's a Greek word meaning the art and science of teaching). A strong pedagogy is not something it's easy to argue one can easily get from TFA's five-week training course. I'm just sayin'.

As for using value-added data from standardized student performance tests as a reliable measure of teacher performance, Husk says that it "can be useful as a single data point" in part of a broader evaluation process, but not on its own. Again, right answer. And again, not suggestive of a corporate reform shill.

Where Banda was calm and reassuring, and Enoch was talkative and energetic, Husk seemed to split the middle of the personality spectrum, displaying a measured and deliberate approach. There was nothing particularly exciting about our conversation, but she was also perhaps a bit more substantive than the others. In fact, she was almost politician-like in her answers, a skill that might serve her well in the politically charged atmosphere the district often finds itself—or that might just exacerbate the already polarized environment.

If I had to bet I'd say Husk is the favorite, not so much for her qualifications—they're all qualified—but for her business-like demeanor, which can't help but appeal to business-like school board members like Michael DeBell and Sherry Carr. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm just not sure that this is the sort of personality the district needs at the helm at this particular time.

• Goldy | The Stranger
• As much as I tried, I couldn't snap a photo of Steven Enoch where he slowed down enough to stop the image from blurring.

Personality wise, you couldn't ask for a bigger contrast between the first two superintendent candidates the Seattle Public Schools have cautiously introduced to reporters. Where as José Banda was calm, soft-spoken, and deliberate, Steven Enoch was a frenetic bundle of nervous energy, his hands constantly moving to the rhythm of his long, detailed, enthusiastic, long answers to the paltry few questions we could jam into our allotted 15-minute interview. If he were a politician, one might suspect him of filibustering. But I got the impression that Enoch just likes to talk.

And he's got a lot to say. Of all the candidates Enoch has the most experience, having helmed a number of districts of various sizes, including the Mead School District near Spokane and the tiny San Juan Island School District, both here in Washington State, as well as the 48,000-student San Juan Unified School District outside Sacramento, California. Currently Enoch runs the San Ramon Valley Unified School District near San Francisco.

At 63, Enoch is also the oldest candidate, a fact that can't comfort those looking for a superintendent to impose stability over a long tenure. Neither does his penchant for moving on after a few years; if appointed, Seattle would be Enoch's fifth district in a little more than a decade.

But Enoch certainly seems to have the chops to run a big city school district, as well as a feel for the culture here in Seattle. Like Banda, Enoch passed my litmus test questions with flying colors. On charter schools Enoch says "I don't think it's needed in Seattle," pleasing me if not my counterparts across the table from the Seattle Times. On Teach For America, Enoch says that he loves "the mission," but would be "cautious" about embracing it, especially at a time when there are so many trained and qualified teachers out of work. As for the current craze toward using "value-added" student performance on standardized tests to evaluate teacher performance, Enoch says that "the jury is still out."

Again, like Banda, not the sort of answers that suggest he's bought into the corporate reform movement. Good. Whether he's ultimately the right fit for Seattle's current needs, I'm not yet sure. But it's good to see that the district has managed to recruit at least two apparently qualified candidates.

There were some unhappy journalists at the John Stanford Center this morning as Seattle Public Schools carefully doled out interview time with José Banda, the first of three superintendent candidates to be cautiously shepherded past the press.

Rather than holding a single press conference to introduce each of the candidates, the district has chosen to divvy their time up into three 15-minute availabilities each, with different reporters assigned to different slots. That means each reporter only gets 15 minutes with each candidate, shared with the other reporters in his or her group, an arrangement that has some reporters understandably peeved.

Hell, I can take more than 15 minutes just to ask a question, so it's not a format that exactly welcomes an in depth give and take.

That said, Banda was more satisfying than the interview format in which he was shoved. He diplomatically hedged a bit on a series of litmus test questions, but certainly did not come off as a member of the corporate reform camp. It's "not something that I would consider a high priority" Banda said of charter schools, while praising the many unique and innovative programs already under way in the Seattle schools. As for Teach For America—the controversial program that brings uncertified teachers into the classroom—Banda said he had no experience with it in California, where they've been laying off teachers, not hiring them, but that he'd have to "really research it" before going down that path in Seattle.

Banda also gave a fairly nuanced take on the standard testing craze, saying that "standards are great ... but the testing is a whole different thing." And in answer to the question of whether student performance on standardized tests was a good measure of teacher performance, Banda unhesitatingly answered "No." And then elaborated. That's exactly the way I like questions answered.

It's hard to get a feel for Banda's academic philosophy in such a short amount of time, but I came away impressed with his calm yet forceful demeanor. Banda has a reputation as a consensus builder, an approach he emphasized in his answers, and a skill we could certainly use after a contentious decade of musical superintendent chairs. It'll be interesting to see how the other two candidates compare.