Hello New York,

I'm NYC Schools Chancellor Cathie Black. After careful examination of the overcrowding problem, Mayor Bloomberg and I have come up with an innovative solution. As you know, many people have criticized me for having no background in education, for not having an advanced degree, for not having attended public schools, for not having sent my own kids to public schools, and some have even tried to block my appointment because of all this nonsense. What they don't understand is that I'm a problem solver. Along with Mayor Bloomberg, we've worked this whole thing out.

In fact, there is no overcrowding problem. We've got more than enough facilities to accommodate a reasonable amount of schoolchildren. The problem is that too many of you are having children, and all too frequently at that. We are, therefore, rolling out a multi-step program to deal with this. First, we will make condoms available free of charge for all public school parents. We will have training films available on the internet that will show you how to use them. Honestly, people who would irresponsibly overburden public schools with their prodigious offspring should not be having unprotected sex. It's simply irresponsible.

But that's only a first step. Mayor Bloomberg and I will be introducing legislation introducing financial penalties for people who have more than one child. Naturally we will exempt those who can afford private schools. Nonetheless, it's simply irresponsible to saddle society with all these additional expenses. Sure, there are those who think taxing the rich is the solution to every problem, but there will be no new taxes in NYC. They would hurt business, and wealthy New Yorkers should not bear the brunt of those who choose to fornicate irresponsibly.

Should these measures prove ineffective, we will explore the Sophie's Choice option. Now a lot of naysayers will complain this measure is extreme. However, it will only be utilized in the case of parents who fail to follow the first two options. And, of course, it will not apply to those of us in the top 2% income level. We've suffered enough already, and along with Mayor Bloomberg, I'm working to ease our pain. In any case, any parent, with any income, who wishes to avoid that measure, or indeed any of the above measures, can simply pay private school tuition.

And we're not simply passing this unilaterally. We're going to fully utilize the process set out in the governance measures that are sometimes misleadingly referred to as "mayoral control."  We will first propose this plan to the Panel for Educational Policy, where the Mayor has only 8 of the 13 votes. The 5 votes that don't belong to the mayor are free to vote however they like.  We will also have a public hearing and give everyone 2 minutes to express their opinions. Like we do with school closings, it's our practice to let the public say whatever they want before we do whatever we want. In New York City, we call that democracy.

What could be fairer than that?