Insider will lead Florida education during search for next commissioner
Anastasios Kamoutsas is leaving the post next week.
Tampa Bay Times | By: Jeffrey S. Solochek | June 30, 2026
Florida has a new top official to oversee implementation of its education policies and programs.
Senior chancellor Paul Burns will replace Anastasios Kamoutsas, who begins his new job as president of Polk State College next week.
The State Board of Education unanimously appointed Burns, who has worked in the department since 2018, to serve on a temporary basis while it looks for a permanent commissioner. Chairperson Ryan Petty said that search is ongoing.
Florida law empowers the State Board to select the education commissioner, though in recent years the board has deferred to the wishes of the governor.
“We need to appoint someone to ensure the ongoing operations of this state,” Petty said of the interim action. Burns “has led on nearly every initiative of this administration,” Petty added, saying he has full confidence that Burns will “keep the mission of the department in focus and keep students first.”
Burns played a key role in creating Florida’s latest set of academic standards and helped develop the progress monitoring tests that go with them. A former teacher and school administrator, he has overseen the department’s divisions of early learning, accountability, school choice and safe schools — a job he will continue in addition to running the department.
“I am humbled to serve as Interim Commissioner of Education,” Burns said in a released statement. “I am grateful to the Board for the trust placed in me to continue the mission of prioritizing student achievement and school safety.”
Leading up to the appointment, board members offered little public information about who they might consider to lead the department. In the past, when seeking an interim commissioner, the board has turned to insiders with a strong working knowledge of the system.
Without many names floating around, education advocates across Florida speculated whether the looming choice would reflect that tendency or look more like Kamoutsas, an aggressive culture warrior who frequently used social media as his enforcement soap box.
Anastasios Kamoutsas reacts to being selected commissioner of education during a Florida State Board of Education meeting on June 4, 2025.
Kamoutsas was one of Florida’s shortest-tenured education commissioners, serving a year. During Rick Scott’s administration, Gerard Robinson held the role for just over a year, resigning abruptly amid public opposition to his performance on issues such as testing.
Tony Bennett, Robinson’s replacement, left the post after less than a year, facing scandal in his home state of Indiana, where he had been public education superintendent before coming to Florida.
