Individually they are to be interviewed by the 40-member CEO Search Advisory Committee, which includes students, parents, education activists and business, education and community leaders.

The interviews and question-and-answer sessions are set for the district's North Broad Street administration building beginning at 2 p.m., school district officials said. They are closed to the public.

"We are pleased with the quality of the CEO candidates, and also are happy that we currently are on schedule to conclude this process in a timely manner," reform commission Chairwoman Sandra Dungee Glenn said.

Plans call for the commission to make the final selection within the next two weeks.

Earlier this month Dungee Glenn reacted angrily when the names of candidates were leaked to the media.

Whover is selected will take the helm of the nation's 8th largest school district which, despite an operating budget approaching $2.2 billion, has struggled academically and financially for decades.

The candidates are:

Arlene Ackerman

Since Sept. 2006, Ackerman, 61, has been an education professor at Columbia University's Teachers College in New York. She also directs the university's Urban Education Leaders program and serves as chair of the Superintendents and Scholars Symposium, according to the school district.

Ackerman also serves as superintendent-in-residence for the Broad Superintendents Academy. The Los Angeles-based organization trains executives with non-education backgrounds for leadership positions in urban school districts.

In 2006 she ended a six-year run as superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District with mixed results. While critics charged that she did not work well with parent groups and some members of the school board, test scores rose each of her six years at the helm.

She also uncovered a fraud scheme in the district's facilities department that saved the schools some $56 million, she told the Daily News this month.

Her first job leading a school system came in Washington, D.C., where she served as superintendent from 1998 to 2000. From 1997 to 1998 she was deputy superintendent and chief academic officer.

Ackerman, who is divorced, has a doctorate in administration planning and social policy from Harvard University's Urban Superintendents Program; a master's degree in education from Harvard; a master's degree in educational administration and policy from Washington University, in St. Louis; and an undergraduate degree from Harris Stowe Teachers College, in St. Louis.

The St. Louis native has two grown sons and three granddaughters.

Cyril Kent McGuire

Since July 2003, McGuire, who goes by Kent, has been the dean of the College of Education at Temple University. At the university, he is also a professor of educational leadership and policy studies, and serves as director of the Center for Research on Human Development and Education, according to the school district.

Prior to Temple, McGuire, from 2001 to 2003, was senior vice president for MDRC, a New York-based nonprofit organization that researches social policies. He headed the education, children and youth division.

He served in former President Bill Clinton's Department of Education from 1998 to 2001, as assistant secretary of education in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement.

Through most of the 1990s McGuire, who lives with his wife and children in Moorestown, N.J., worked at foundations that funded education initiatives. From 1995 to 1998, he was a program officer at the Pew Charitable Trusts in Philadelphia; from 1991 to 1995, he was education program director at the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment.

McGuire has a doctorate in public administration from the University of Colorado, Boulder; a master's degree in education administration from Columbia's Teachers College; and an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Leroy D. Nunery II

Last year Nunery founded his own company, PlusUltre LLC. The Wyndmoor consulting firm focuses on improving the academic, operational and financial results of charter and other independent schoools.

Prior to that he worked briefly for Edison Schools Inc., the for-profit company that has struggled in managing 20 low-performing Philadelphia schools since 2002. He was a managing director of BancAmerica Securities in Chicago from 1997 to 1999, and from 1993 to 1997 worked for the National Basketball Association in New York.

Nunery, a resident of Glenside, Pa., is married with children. He has a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania; an M.B.A. from Washington University; and an undergraduate degree in history from Lafayette College, in Easton. *