Inez Tenenbaum - State Superintendent of Education

State Superintendent of Education

Tenenbaum was elected State Superintendent of Education in November 1998 and was re-elected in November 2002.

In 2005, following parental complaints, Tenenbaum decided to remove Chris Crutcher's book, Whale Talk, which had been chosen by the American Library Association as a "Top 10 Best Book for Young Adults", from the South Carolina Education Department's English reading list for sophomores. Tenenbaum's defense of her decision cited the book's "frequent use of profanity."

Tenenbaum was featured in an interview by John Stossel for a 20/20 Special Edition about public schools in the United States and around the world, called "Stupid in America," which originally aired on the ABC News network on January 13, 2006. She was criticized by Stossel for South Carolina's low SAT score average. South Carolina was tied for 50th place with Georgia among the US states at the time, with an average score of 993 out of a combined 1600 possible. Tenenbaum defended South Carolina's progress, noting that the state was rapidly narrowing the gap between its students' test scores and the national average and was poised for vast improvements in the next few years.

Tennenbaum was replaced as Superintendent of Education by Democrat Jim Rex on January 10, 2007.