Tuesday is the big day. Zoie Saunders, Gov. Phil Scott’s pick for education secretary, goes before the Senate Education Committee in the first step toward Senate confirmation of her selection. In advance of the occasion, here are some questions I would ask if I were, saints preserve us, a member of that committee.

In preparation for this post, I listened to Saunders’ interview last week on “Vermont Edition,” and I have some questions about that program as well. But first, let’s put Saunders in my entirely imaginary witness chair.

There are some obvious questions I wouldn’t bother to ask because others will. Questions about charter schools and school choice, for instance. Saunders is well practiced in answering those with a flurry of multisyllabic educationese. I’m assuming someone will ask her about her lack of experience in public schools and why she chose to spend her career almost entirely outside of public education.

I would ask Saunders about her unusual job search last year. She was the chief education officer for the city of Fort Lauderdale at the time. She applied for the Vermont position last fall and, at around the same time, she applied for an opening with the Broward County Public Schools. On November 15, the Vermont Board of Education forwarded three names to the governor; we now know that Saunders was one of the three. About a month later, she started work at BCPS as head of a consolidation process meant to address declining enrollment in the system.

And then, three months into a complicated, controversial process, she accepted the position in Vermont and left Florida on very short notice. (She was introduced by the governor on March 22 and started work in Vermont on April 15.) This raises a number of concerns.

First, I’d ask her to explain her search process. Why did she simultaneously apply for two jobs and why did she begin work at BCPS when she knew she was a finalist in Vermont?

Second, I would note that if I were her employer at BCPS I’d be royally pissed at her for leaving while the district’s consolidation process was barely beginning. What would she say to them?

Third, what would she say to someone who looked at her recent job history and wondered about her commitment to this position?

Other topics. Saunders’ experience is almost entirely in strategic positions. As far as I can tell, she has never managed a bureaucracy of any size in either the public or private sector. I would ask her what’s the largest staff cohort she has ever had to manage, and what qualifies her to become head of a pretty sizeable state agency.

Saunders has spoken at length about the importance of education. I would ask her for specific comments about the value of public education, of a strong public school system.

Follow-up: during her interview on Vermont Public, Saunders claimed that charter schools are public schools. She should be questioned about that statement.

I would ask if she favors wider school choice even at the cost of diverting money from public schools.

And finally, I would ask about her recent visit to the White River Elementary School where, according to the teachers’ union, the media was barred from attending and participation was limited to students — no adults, no school staff. Is that true? Was it her idea? Does she think it appropriate to place such conditions on what’s supposed to be an open, accessible “listening tour”?

These are far from the only questions she should be asked, but they’re at the top of my list. I hope that members of Senate Education put her to the test and allow ample time for a full hearing. It’s been allotted 90 minutes on the committee’s schedule, which seems like the absolute minimum. I hope there’s room to extend the session if needed.

Now, a few notes on that “Vermont Edition” interview. Host Michaela Lefrak’s introduction failed to mention the need for Senate confirmation. Lefrak acted as if Saunders was in the job for good. That seems like a serious fail on Vermont Public’s part.

Also, Lefrak’s introduction noted that the Saunders interview had been recorded in advance and “edited for clarity and brevity.” As far as I know, “Vermont Edition” is normally a live program. Was this a departure from standard practice? If so, why? And if the thing was recorded in advance, couldn’t they have arranged a better audio connection? The sound quality was subpar by public radio standards.

Finally, regrettably, Saunders says “um” a lot. A LOT. This isn’t a deal-breaker, but it’s an odd quality for a top educational official. Here’s a sample, transcribed as accurately as I could.

We need to be, do our research, make sure we are looking at the data that’s helping us to, to make these decisions in a way, um, that’s going to be in the best interests of our students. Um, all of these changes and, you know, uh, ideas for changes to the system require more in-depth modeling, um, to really understand what the impact will be, um, in, in, in practice, um. So I’m not in a position to make some policy recommendations today, um, but certainly, um, would bring a very, um, data-driven, uh, collaborative approach to exploring, um, you know, changes, potential changes to the education system.

That’s an awful lot of nothing, expressed poorly.

This wasn’t just a case of Saunders having a bad day, either. Here’s a sample from her introductory press conference on March 22:

What I have learned throughout my career is that community context really matters, um, and these are conversations that really need to take place, um, in coordination with, um, all the stakeholders across the state, um, and within, uh, local towns to really understand what are the challenges, uh, what may be driving, um, the declining enrollment before we can begin to explore, uh, some of the strategies.

Now, a certain amount of um-ing is to be expected. People who work in radio listen back to their on-air work, and it can be a real shock to discover how often you resort to verbal tics like “um” and “you know.” Good professionals make a conscious effort to scrub them from their speech.

That’s not a prerequisite for running a public education system. But one might expect that if Saunders aims to rise to the top of her field, she would work on the quality of her diction. And take a weed-whacker to the educational bureaucratese that makes her statements unnecessarily busy, if not deliberately obscure.

We’ll see how much homework that members of the Senate Education Committee have done. Let’s hope they give Saunders’ nomination a thorough and properly skeptical examination.