School Choice & Charters

The ‘Queen Bee’ of Kindergarten Admissions

By Anthony Rebora — December 20, 2011 1 min read
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Surely this tells us something significant about the current education climate (among other things): It seems that the most powerful person in New York City right now might just be one Elisabeth Krents, the 61-year-old admissions director of the Dalton School on the Upper East Side. It is she, as a New York Times story explains, who decides the fates of the hundreds of over-achieving toddlers each year whose parents are trying to get them into one of the country’s most esteemed kindergartens:

Power brokers fear her, well-heeled mothers seek advice on how to dress for her, wads of money are spent on preparing children to impress her—and people, it seems, are unwilling to share their names along with their thoughts about her.

Ironically, from the rest of the article, Krents—better known as “Babby"—sounds like a very caring and down-to-earth lady who’s just doing her job.

But alas, the dread she inspires among the NYC elite has only grown as she has set about trying to increase minority enrollment at Dalton. “It’s upsetting,” she says. “People get very disappointed when they can’t have everything they want.”

A version of this news article first appeared in the Teaching Now blog.