Dive Brief:

• The pool of candidates for Missouri's next education commissioner has been narrowed down to five: Terry Adams, Douglas Hayter, C.J. Huff, Norm Ridder, and Margaret Vandeven.
• All five have ties to education in Missouri: Adams served as superintendent of two districts who sits on the state's lottery panel, Hayter is  a current superintendent, as are Huff and Ridder, and Vandeven is deputy commissioner of education in the division of learning services with nearly a decade of experience at the Missouri Department of Education.
• A vote on the new commissioner will follow interviews with all of the candidates in Jefferson City next week.

Dive Insight:

The state has moved quickly to replace outgoing education commissioner Chris Nicastro, though the speed of the move has drawn some criticism. Still, it's impressive that the state narrowed down its finalists from 40 in just a few weeks. Now it has a tough choice ahead, as all five finalists seem like solid choices. As an interesting aside, though, at least one of the finalists wasn't sure who nominated him for the position.