In my high school senior English class we read A Modest Proposal and had to write our own version solving a modern problem.

I wrote mine on solving the overcrowding of prisions by building a prison on the moon. Since establishing a space colony is dangerous work, you use the death row inmates to do the construction, then just turn off the air supply. (More effective than lethal injection...)

I had not heard of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress at the time, but I did end up reading it soon after.