Inez Tenenbaum (née Moore; born March 8, 1951)[1] is an American lawyer and politician who served as South Carolina Superintendent of Education and as chairperson of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

[1] Originally a public school teacher, Tenenbaum entered state government as an employee of the South Carolina Department of Social Services.

She later served as the director of research for the Medical, Military, Public and Municipal Affairs Committee of the South Carolina House of Representatives.

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.

[3] In 2005, following parental complaints, Tenenbaum removed Chris Crutcher's book, Whale Talk, from the state's English reading list for middle grades.

[5] Tenenbaum defended South Carolina's progress, noting that the state was rapidly narrowing the gap between its students' test scores and the national average.

[14] On May 5, 2009, President Barack Obama announced that he would nominate Tenenbaum to head the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission.

[20] In 2012, in collaboration with consumer product regulators in Australia, Japan, Korea, and New Zealand, CPSC, along with KidSafe, organized a multijurisdictional symposium on technical solutions to eliminate or mitigate the hazards posed by ingested button batteries.

[20] In 2012, the CPSC began a public-private collaboration to work on lowering the risk of concussions and other mild traumatic brain injuries at the youth football level.

[22] 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.

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.