Goodykoontz, Bess, 1894-1990

Bess Goodykoontz (1894-1990) was born in Waukon, Iowa. She earned bachelors and master's degrees in education from the University of Iowa. Following her studies, Goodykoontz taught at schools in rural Iowa as well as the experimental school at the University of Iowa before serving as supervisor of elementary schools in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

In 1929, President Herbert Hoover appointed her Assistant U.S. Commissioner of Education, a position that she held in the Bureau of Education for the next sixteen years. During Goodykoontz's tenure as Assistant Commissioner, she oversaw conferences sponsored by the Bureau, as well as field surveys, and acted as a departmental liaison with various lay groups and professional organizations concerned with education. This period was not only an era of reform, however, but also one marked by the crises of the Great Depression and World War II. In response, she advocated programs that would retrain the unemployed, and stressed that school classes needed to be made more relevant to these changing times. She also advocated the use of sound films and supported the addition of the industrial arts to the high school curriculum. With the advent of war, she advocated day care programs so that mothers would be able to work in the defense industries in greater numbers.

Following the war, Goodykoontz was sent to Germany in 1946 as part of a delegation representing the U.S. Office of Military Government. During her visit, she studied and made recommendations for educational programs in post-war Germany. That same year, she was promoted to the position of Director of the Division of Elementary Education within the Bureau of Education, and in 1949 she was named Associate Commissioner. In 1951 she was appointed Director of Comparative Education, and worked throughout the 1950s in the field of international education. Throughout her career, Goodykoontz was actively involved in a number of professional organizations, such as the Association for Childhood Education International, and served as vice president of the United States National Committee for Childhood Education and president of the World Organization for Early Childhood Education. She also attended a number of United Nations conferences on education as a delegate representing the United States.

Although Goodykoontz retired from the Bureau of Education in 1960, she continued writing textbooks about education, and working as a consultant. In 1973 she moved to South Newfane, Vermont, where she died on July 29, 1990.