Former high ranking education officials in Kansas and Missouri are the two finalists to become the next state education commissioner, it was announced Friday.

The two are Alexa Posny, currently with the U.S. Department of Education and a former deputy education commissioner in Kansas, and Marilou Joyner, an education consultant and former assistant education commissioner in Missouri.

State Board of Education Chairman Bill Wagnon said the two candidates will be interviewed again May 7. They were selected from a field of five candidates who were interviewed by the board on Thursday.

“They have impressive resumes and gave impressive interviews,” Wagnon said of the two remaining candidates.

Posny is director of the office of special education programs with the federal education agency. In 2005, when she was with the Kansas Department of Education, she was passed over for the education commissioner job when the conservative majority on the board selected Bob Corkins, who had no background in education. Shortly afterward, Posny took her current position with the U.S. education department.

Corkins resigned last year after moderates took back control of the board.

Wagnon said Joyner currently is working as a consultant with the Kansas City, Missouri school district.