Mississippi's New Superintendent of Education Has Served in the Position Before

Published by Lawayne Childrey on 03 Nov 2009 7:11pm
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Newly selected State Superintendent of Education, Tom Burnham
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Mississippi's newly selected superintendent of Education will face tough funding challenges when he takes over by the end of the year. Yesterday the state board of education voted unanimously to bring Tom Burnham back as the top education chief. MPB's Lawayne Childrey reports.

A decade ago Tom Burnham served five and a half years as state superintendent of education in Mississippi. During that time he oversaw the passage of the Mississippi Adequate Education Program also known as MAEP. Since then lawmakers have struggled to fund MAEP as well as many other projects. Burnham says even though times are tough economically, his goal is to continue improving the quality of education in Ms.

“The state board and Dr. bounds have put together a tremendous foundation with everything that’s been done in terms of planning and the children’s first act and high school redesign and dropout prevention. We have a tremendous foundation to work with and yes the resources will be a challenge but it’s something I’m excited about doing.”

The 62 year old Burnham is currently dean of the School of Education at the University of Mississippi. He has also served as the executive director of the Gulf Coast Education Consortium and superintendent of the Biloxi School dist. as well as the Henderson County Public School district in North Carolina. MDE Board Chairman Bill Jones of Petal, says Burnham brings so much to the table that it was an opportunity they couldn't pass up.

“he’s a great consensus builder, he has a great report with superintendents that are presently serving and still working in the state. So we think that he will not skip a beat, every program we have ongoing will be fully implemented and he will take charge and we are very pleased to have him.”

Burnham, is a native of Puckett. He replaces former superintendent Hank Bounds and interim superintendent John . Jordan. For MPB News, I'm Lawayne Childrey.