Inez Tenenbaum

Inez Tenenbaum (née Moore; born March 8, 1951)

State Superintendent of Education Tenenbaum was elected State Superintendent of Education in November 1998 and re-elected in November 2002. She focused her administration on six key initiatives to fuel education progress in South Carolina: raising the academic bar and embracing accountability for student academic progress, improving teacher quality, providing quality early childhood education for all children, supporting strong and effective school leadership, promoting safe and healthy schools, and increasing parent and community involvement.

During her tenure, the South Carolina General Assembly approved a $750 million school bond legislation for K-12 school construction and renovation, with local districts leveraging the bond amount to raise the total to $1.75 billion. More than 140 new schools were built under the act, using a combination of state and local voter-approved bonds. She was featured in an interview by John Stossel for a 20/20 Special Edition about public schools in the United States and world. Tenenbaum defended South Carolina's progress, noting that the state was rapidly narrowing the gap between its students' test scores and the national average.

By the end of her term in 2007, South Carolina was a key leader in the nation in education improvement. Five independent national studies—by the Fordham Foundation, and Education Next, Math, Grade 8—Number 1 in the nation The state's SAT scores increased 34 points over eight years (1999-2007), the largest ten-year gain in the nation.

Consumer Products Safety Commission On May 5, 2009, President Barack Obama announced that he would nominate Tenenbaum to head the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission. She was confirmed in that position by the U.S. Senate unanimously on June 19, 2009. On February 28, 2013 Tenenbaum announced that she will not seek renomination when her term expires in October 2013.

In 2009, the CPSC established its first overseas office in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. In the same year, it created an Internet Surveillance Unit to aid in marketplace surveillance of retail and Internet auction sites to identify sellers offering banned, recalled, or dangerous products. The CPSC began an investigation into the safety concerns of liquid laundry packets that have been swallowed by children in April 2013. In November 2013, the CPSC worked with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to seize more than 200,000 toy dolls that were made in China and contained banned chemical compounds.

During her tenure at the CPSC, Tenenbaum made regulations for children's products, created a public database to catalog product safety complaints, and put in place mandatory standards for children's beds, cribs, and swings. In 2013, she stepped down from her role with the CPSC to take a job with the law firm Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP.

2004 U.S. Senate run

Tenenbaum was the Democratic candidate in the 2004 election for retiring Democrat Fritz Hollings's seat in the U.S. Senate; she lost to Republican nominee Jim DeMint by 152,783 votes.

Law firm In 2016, she announced she would join the law firm of Wyche, P.A. Her practice focuses on consumer product safety and risk management, working particularly with manufacturers and retailers of consumer products to ensure compliance with applicable consumer product safety requirements and to protect the client's brand.

Awards In 2001, The Center for Creative Leadership, a nonprofit education institution in Greensboro, North Carolina, named Inez Tenenbaum the recipient of its third annual Distinguished Alumni Award for "making leadership a fundamental requirement for school reform as part of South Carolina's strategic plan for education."

In 2009, Washingtonian Magazine listed Inez Tenenbaum as one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in Washington, DC.

Personal Tenenbaum and her husband Samuel Tenenbaum reside in Lexington, South Carolina. She is Methodist, and her husband is Jewish.