How much more are teachers supposed to add to their day and still somehow cover the basics of language arts, math, science and social studies? A lot according to some lawmakers. A pair of bills up for consideration would mandate the dangers of sexting be taught in public schools along with a primer in how to safely abandon your newborn baby.

Schools are already overburdened with a ridiculous number of mandates to teach children things their parents should be solely in charge of. There's even the broad category of 'character education' where students are supposed to be taught things like empathy. There will always be some parents who abdicate their roles and children coming from such bad homes probably won't stand much of a chance anyway. Meanwhile the majority of good parents send their children to school where precious time is wasted on deference to dysfunction. If you haven't taught your child honesty, integrity, empathy by the time they're in middle school then you are a waste of a parent and a drain on taxpayers. It is because of you that more and more of the 180 required school days are being squandered on playing parent to your neglected kids instead of teaching the basics to everyone.

The latest is a bill that would require the dangers of sexting be taught in middle school. A teacher would be tasked with explaining to kids why sending dirty pictures of themselves through electronic means might cause them problems. This is really why we send our kids to school? This is what our property tax is paying for?

Another bill would mandate that in grades 9 through 12 the state's Safe Haven law would be taught to let students know that they can safely and legally abandon their newborn infant to hospitals, police stations, fire stations, ambulance, first aid and rescue squads staffed 24 hours with no questions asked. In the past month 4 babies were left to die in various locations like an abandoned building in Trenton and along the PATH tracks in Jersey City. Again, this is why we send kids to school and pay the property taxes we do, so that people who don't raise their kids properly can have the school become the parent?

How to behave in a traffic stop is another example of suggested mandatory school curriculum. Is it that radical an idea that school should be for basic academics? No time is being added to the calendar year to accommodate such progressive ideas. Therefore every moment you are adding to a teacher's day is a moment of real learning being taken away from the student. You cannot legislate away bad parenting. All the bells and whistles and social programs you add to the curriculum is not going to make up for a child's dysfunctional upbringing and lack of parental communication. So let's focus on the majority of kids with good parents who already have empathy, who know you don't toss a newborn in a suitcase along a railroad track, who learned respect by 5 and who are there to actually learn and become something in life.

More From New Jersey 101.5 FM