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UPPER-CRUST KLEIN

Reading, writing and . . . ricotta.

When he’s not overseeing the education of the city’s 1.1 million public-school kids, the city’s Queens-born schools chancellor goes by a far cheesier moniker: pizza aficionado.

Joel Klein’s lifelong passion for the New York slice has sent him to the far reaches of the city in search of the perfect pie.

And if people think his controversial “A” through “F” grading system for schools is tough, they should hear his meticulous assessment of crusts and sauces.

“Perfect pizza is as good as it gets. [But] it’s got to be perfect,” said Klein, who said he first developed his pizza passion while studying at Columbia University, when he drove a city cab all over town on weekends.

“If you have a Neapolitan pizza and you pick it up [by the crust] and the tip flops over, that means it’s not done right,” he said.

“You should be able to pick it up, and it should remain horizontal.”

Klein’s formula for the ideal pie is simple but exacting: a thin, charred but chewy crust, naturally sweetened tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella cheese.

He says two spots in the city do it best: Lucali in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, and Luzzo’s in the East Village.

Always a believer in raising standards, Klein continues to seek out new joints on weekend jaunts with his wife, Sony executive Nicole Seligman, that have led them to discover Keste Pizza in the Village, Anselmo’s in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and Roberta’s in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Klein’s ever-growing expertise makes new pizza recommendations a regular topic in the Department of Education’s headquarters, as well as among other officials who have talked shop with him at city functions.

“He was just so passionate about it and very opinionated, and I thought, ‘This is a boy from Queens who knows his stuff,’ ” said Katherine Oliver, commissioner of the Mayor’s Film Office, who ran into Klein at a recent benefit.

Asked about the deep-dish variety, he gets even more New York — roundly panning it.

“Chicago pizza to me is not pizza — I mean it’s just mostly dough,” Klein said. “If I eat it, I take a fork, and I eat the sauce and the cheese.”

US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan — a Chicago native who ran that city’s schools system for seven years — was quick to challenge the failing grade.

“Anyone who eats sauce with a fork is no expert on food,” he quipped.

yoav.gonen@nypost.com