SEATTLE – This is supposed to be the time of year when children across the nation, bored with summer, prepare for the start of another school year and their steady progression toward graduation.

American taxpayers are supportive of these kids. The vast majority believe in the concept of a free public education. That’s why they fork over billions of dollars every year – mostly without complaint – to pay for the operation of local schools, whether they have children enrolled or not.

So we’re all on the same page, right?

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Well, not all of us.

Students in hundreds of districts aren’t sure when their first day of school will be, regardless of published schedules that tell them to report either this week or after Labor Day.

That’s because the teachers unions in their districts have expiring contracts and are threatening to strike if their demands aren’t met before the bell rings on the first day of school.

Thousands of American children are once again being held hostage by people who claim to value and care about them. And we continue to put up with it.

The state of Washington seems to be emerging as the centerpiece for this annual atrocity this year. Teachers in Seattle are threatening to strike if a new contract is not in place by the first day of school next week, while teachers in a smaller district, South Kilsap, have voted to strike if they don’t have a contract by Saturday.

“So it goes, another year and another series of threats of teacher strikes,” said a blog adapted from a recent discussion on a Washington radio show. “The Seattle school district has been sending out robocalls to all of its families saying you better make some other plans if you were planning on your kids going to school next week.

“Parents’ lives are going to be disrupted. Kids’ lives are going to be toyed with once again, so the union can flex its muscles. This is a tactic of the union every year. They move it from district to district.”

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Is this annual rite of union bullying really healthy for the education process? Shouldn’t we be focused on improving instruction for our children, who continue to fall academically behind their peers in other nations, rather than playing silly collective bargaining games every fall?

Union officials are threatening to infringe on the fundamental right of American children to enjoy a free public education. They are also threatening to violate the law – teacher strikes are illegal in Washington, just like they are in most other states.

Unfortunately the strike law in Washington is more bark than bite. The teachers know they can flaunt this law with little or no repercussion, so they don’t think twice about doing it.

What’s the point of having a law if the state has no interest in enforcing it?

We’ve said it once and we’ll continue to repeat it as long as it takes – American students have an absolute right to a daily education uninterrupted by adult disagreements. Adults who attempt to violate that sacred right should be removed from the education system.

This isn’t supposed to be about the adults.  Schools exist to benefit children, period.

‘The closer to the deadline …’

Recent excerpts from two daily radio shows in Washington raise some serious questions about teacher strikes and teachers union collective bargaining in general.

The first involved a discussion about the sickening tradition of last minute contract negotiations, which the unions purposefully arrange to pressure local school boards into giving them what they want.

Many unions arrange to have their collective bargaining agreements expire just before the beginning of the school year, and insist that their work can’t continue until a new contract is in place.

Of course they have all summer to negotiate a new pact and work over any bumps in the road. Yet the talks never seem to get serious until the pressure is on to settle the dispute and avoid a delay in the start of the school year.

Why? Because parents get panicky as the school year nears and start pressuring the school board to come to some agreement with the union, regardless of the cost.

As someone on the David Boze Show on KTTH radio commented, “The teachers union can sit back and say, ‘Hey, the closer to the deadline, the more leverage we have.’”

That means the teachers – or at least their greedy union leaders – have absolutely no respect for students or their families. They tell the school board to give them what they want, or everyone is going to suffer.

An excerpt from the Dori Monson Show on radio station KIRO asks a very logical question – how can teachers tell students that they are expected to follow school rules or risk certain punishment, yet they remain free to ignore state law and walk out on strike if they choose?

“We expect our kids to follow the rules,” a blog adapted from the Monson show says. “I mean, you bite a pop tart into the shape of a gun and you are expelled from school. You must tow the line if you are a child in our state. If you’re a teacher, oh, they’ll break the law.”

The blog notes that teachers don’t have to worry about legal or financial ramifications if they choose to strike. They will get their full pay for a full school year when they eventually return to work. So essentially when they walk out, they’re simply extending their summer vacation a little longer.

“A lot of people don’t realize that teachers strikes are illegal in our state,” the blog said. “Public employees are prohibited by state law from striking. But because the union has so much political muscle, they are able to pull off this illegal caper every single year, from district to district, because there is nobody who has the guts to stand up to the teachers union.”

Notice there are no strikes in Wisconsin

It doesn’t have to be like this.

In Wisconsin there are no reports about pending teachers strikes this fall. That’s because there is little or nothing to fight about.

In 2011 the state passed Act 10, a law severely curbing collective bargaining privileges for public sector labor unions. They are only allowed to negotiate over salaries, and only up to the rate of inflation as indicated by the Consumer Price Index.

School boards are free to impose all other rules and conditions of employment. They are also free to fire teachers without explanation at the end of every school year, regardless of seniority or tenure issues.

Some would argue that those are poor conditions for teachers. But administrators point out that natural market forces will work in favor of quality teachers. All districts get pressure from the public to hire and maintain the best educators they can find, and many Wisconsin districts have already been bidding for the services of effective teachers.

The relative ease involved in dumping bad teachers, and the open competition for good teachers, bodes well for the future of education in Wisconsin.

There certainly would be teacher strikes in Wisconsin if the unions had not been brought under control. A recent story in the Watertown Daily Times describes union unhappiness in the Watertown district over a new labor contract that was imposed by the school board without the approval of the union.

The contract gives all teachers a small raise, but directs more money toward the salaries of younger teachers. School official say they did that in an effort to attract high quality new teachers. In other districts around the state, school boards are basing bonuses on teacher performance rather than longevity.

In the past, union contracts gave automatic, annual raises to all teachers, regardless of skills, based on seniority and the number of college credits they’ve earned. And in the past local unions would have been willing to strike over an issue like this.

But they can’t do that in Wisconsin anymore, because most issues are no longer topics of collective bargaining. School boards and administrators run the schools, and the teachers abide by the rules or look for employment elsewhere.

And everyone knows where the teachers will be on the schedule first day of school – in the classroom where they belong.