Many children, teens and adults seem to lack a common sense gene. Some can't balance a checkbook, use a credit card responsibly, or understand the impact of supersized food portions and junk food. Does it then become the responsibility of taxpayer-funded public schools to teach these skills? No: a laser-like focus on teaching core academic subjects such as reading, writing, math and science is what more schools need to adopt, so that students graduate high school prepared for college and the ever more competitive global economy.

Which is why it's dismaying to learn that Texas teachers recently spent parts of a whole week hectoring their first- through fourth-grade students about portion sizes, with the state's blessing. One even dressed up a large piece of lettuce, and used a yo-yo and potato to make her point. (Apparently, you are only supposed to eat a yo-yo or two worth of potatoes at one sitting).

Driver education makes sense in schools, but little else from what might be termed the "life skills" agenda does, in my view. That includes sex education - which is best left to parents because its appropriation by morally neutral classroom personnel legitimizes and facilitates socially costly sexual activity by immature teens.

On the diet and health front, it's good that school cafeterias are changing menu offerings to feature more healthy fare for students, and that crummy vending machine snack and beverage offerings in school are being replaced with more nutritious choices. But instructional time is finite, American student achievement is markedly poor versus that of other nations, and parents are ultimately responsible for teaching common sense, just as was the case before the birth of the modern Nanny State. Can we get back on track, please?

TECHNORATI TAGS: IRVING, TEXAS, PORTION SIZE, NUTRITION CLASSES, PARENTS, SCHOOLS, INSTRUCTIONAL TIME, ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT, NANNY STATE