It seems to happen every spring. With the session nearing its end and its work undone, the General Assembly takes time to debate and sometimes pass a bill telling the public schools they ought to teach a specific subject aimed at one group or another.

Usually, the course has to do with history and in the past, the legislature has sought to court various voting blocs by requiring the State Department of Education to prepare courses in African American, Native American and Puerto Rican history. There was also a rather specialized history of the Irish potato famine of 1848 as well as courses in nice things to know like personal finance, CPR training and the use of defibrillators. None of these came with a mandate or financing.

This, of course, is the job of educators, not legislators. It does not seem to occur to these academic busybodies that the schools, with only an inadequate 180 days a year, hardly have the time to teach our children the basics in English, mathematics, science, social studies, language and the arts. Too often, colleges have to teach high school graduates what they didn’t learn before graduation.

In recent years, the special interest deemed most needy of a feel good bill has been organized labor and for a second consecutive session, the state Senate has passed a bill directing the Education Department to develop a course in labor history. And to keep the Republicans happy, the Democratic majority agreed to add a curriculum on free market capitalism and its contribution to the American economy, along with labor’s. Republican senators appreciated the gesture while voting against the bill.

Senate President Martin Looney said adding the course on the history of the labor movement was vital to understanding “the history of this country and how it was formed.” So too, goes the logic, was the motivation behind the legislation encouraging courses on the historic roles of African Americans, Native Americans and Hispanics. (The legislature singled out for attention Puerto Rico; an ethnic group that coincidentally, or perhaps not, provides more voters.)

However, high schools only have the time to require three credits in social studies, which usually means a year of American history, a year of government and a year for the rest of the world. The schools do not ignore the roles that various groups have played in the development of this nation of immigrants, or the labor movement, or free market capitalism — but there is only so much time.

This is not to say anyone should be happy with the lack of knowledge many Americans have about their history. Back in 2011, Newsweek asked 1,000 U.S. citizens to take America’s official citizenship test. It found 29 percent couldn’t name the vice president, 71 percent couldn’t correctly say why we fought the Cold War, 44 percent were unable to define the Bill of Rights, and 6 percent couldn’t even circle Independence Day on a calendar. There is no reason to think such knowledge has improved, though many can turn to smartphones to provide the facts, if not the context.

So rather than trying to cram some specifics into the history curriculum through legislative decree, public school systems need to do a better job of teaching the basics and citizens need to take more responsibility for a little self-education about their country. Some may tear up over the lyrics of “I’m Proud to be an American,” but ignorance about the foundations of the nation is nothing about which to be proud.

The legislature, meanwhile, should concentrate on matters of public education within its purview, like the continued separate but unequal conditions of our schools and the tendency of our students to lag behind those of other industrialized nations. Do a better job of that and perhaps the holes in the historic knowledge of many of our citizens will begin to mend.