SINCE the subject today is schooling, let’s start with a quiz:

1. A third grader in Florida is often late for class. She tends to forget her homework and is unprepared for tests. The teacher would like to talk to her parents about this, but they fail to attend parent-teacher conferences. The teacher should:

a) Fail the student.

b) Fail the parents.

2. A middle-school student in Alaska is regularly absent, and his grades are suffering as a result. The district should:

a) Fail the student.

b) Fine the parents $500 a day for every day the student is not in school.

3. A California kindergartner has been absent, without a doctor’s note or other “verifiable reason,” 10 times in one semester. The district should:

a) Call the parents.

b) Call the district attorney and have charges brought against the parents.

The answer, under state laws that have been proposed (No. 1), or recently enacted (No. 2 and No. 3), is “b” on all counts: If a student is behaving badly, punish Mom and Dad.

Teachers are fed up with being blamed for the failures of American education, and legislators are starting to hear them. A spate of bills introduced in various states now takes aim squarely at the parents. If you think you can legislate teaching, the notion goes, why not try legislating parenting?

It is a complicated idea, taking on the controversial question of whether parents, teachers or children are most to blame when a child fails to learn.