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Sunday, Nov. 08, 2009

Burnham embraces challenges as leader of education in state

When he takes over as state superintendent of education, Tom Burnham will be going home again — sort of.

Education officials announced last week that Burnham had been chosen for the job, one he held between 1992 and 1997.

His biggest challenge, he said, will be the state’s new accountability plan, which is in its first year.

He also will be charged with implementing the Children First Act, a plan that deals with low-performing schools.

“It’s a very demanding job,” he said in a phone interview. “But I’m looking forward to it.”

He is replacing Hank Bounds, who was hired recently as the state commissioner of higher education.

Burnham is a native of Puckett and was the principal at Biloxi High during the 1987-88 school year.

He was named superintendent in Biloxi that fall and during the spring semester served as principal and superintendent.

After his first stint at the state level, Burnham was hired as the superintendent of Henderson County Public Schools in North Carolina.

He also has served as the director of the Gulf Coast Education Initiative Consortium and an adjunct professor at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Currently, Burnham is the dean of the School of Education at the University of Mississippi.

He will start his new job the first week of January.

Burnham, 62, said his top priority will be the new accountability plan, but he also wants to continue to build on programs Bounds started.

“There will be no major redirecting of the programs Hank Bounds initiated,” he said.

He added, though, he will make sure every office in the Department of Education is run efficiently.

“There are very few things that you can’t go into and do more efficiently,” he said.

Burnham also is used to dealing with tight budgets.

“I’ve always been fiscally very conservative,” he said. “I believe that we’re spending the public’s money so we have to be even more careful.”

Bounds said Burnham is the right person for this job and that the two will work together to improve education in Mississippi.

“I think the world of Tom Burnham,” Bounds said. “He was invaluable to me when I became state superintendent.”

Biloxi Superintendent Paul Tisdale was the principal at DuKate when Burnham was the Biloxi superintendent.

Tisdale believes Burnham’s experience make him the right person to lead the state education department.

“He knows the process,” Tisdale said. “He’s worked at the 20,000-foot level perspective before.”

Burnham is married to Terri Burnham, the technology coordinator at the Gulfport School District.

He said the two haven’t lived in the same city since he took the job in North Carolina and she stayed in Gulfport.

“We see each other every other weekend,” he said, laughing.

“Maybe now that I’ll be in Jackson we can see each other more often.”