By YOAV GONEN
Less than two weeks into her new gig, Schools Chancellor Cathie Black has riled parents and public officials by jokingly suggesting that "birth control" was the solution to school overcrowding.
The off-color quip came in response to concerns by public-school dad Eric Greenleaf, who said at a meeting of parents and officials at state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's downtown office that there will be "huge shortages" of classroom space in lower Manhattan in coming years.
"Could we just have some birth control for a while?" Black cracked. "It could really help us all out a lot."
The public-service novice, who has spent her entire career in media and publishing, also dropped jaws at the meeting by likening her task of satisfying space-crunch concerns in every neighborhood to making "many Sophie's Choices" -- a reference to the book in which a mother in the Auschwitz death camp is forced to decide which of her two children will live.
"Everybody's face fell. You don't want to hear that reference when you're talking about children," said Tricia Joyce, whose kids attend the perennially overcrowded PS 234 in TriBeCa. "She could have been nervous, it could have been the first thing that came to her mind.
"I just hope she chooses to do something much better than what she says."
Some who were at the meeting said Black's levity was especially inappropriate given that she was addressing a community whose complaints about the scarcity of public-school seats has for years seemed to fall on deaf ears.
They said they came to hear solutions, not stand-up comedy.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/black_wisecrack_on_birth_control_a0EUsHTDjVvWAMvA5qf6KI#ixzz1B8TBKOrG
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