Demand for teacher salary list crashes Web site

Stop Teacher Strikes Inc., the non-partisan citizens group working to ban teacher strikes in Pennsylvania, appears to be a victim of its own success.

The group posted a list of 120,000 Pennsylvania teachers and their salaries, but interest in the information has been so great that it crashed the group's Web site.

Once word started getting out that teacher salaries were available online thanks to posts at GrassrootsPA and POLICY BLOG, so many people went to the site that it crashed the server.

So, give it a few days if you want to find out how much teachers in your school district are getting paid. (Hint: The average teacher salary in Pennsylvania is $54,027.)

The online database was created by the NJ-based Asbury Park Press newspaper. It includes the 2006-2007 salaries of teachers working in all 501 public school
districts in Pennsylvania, according to Simon Campbell, founder of Stop Teacher Strikes Inc.

"Freedom of information has combined with freedom of the press to shatter the union-promoted myth of the underpaid teacher in Pennsylvania," Campbell said in a press release announcing the database.

Campbell continued:

"Presidential and state legislative candidates hunting for teacher union money and votes are hiding under the table, when it comes to issues like ending teacher strikes and forced unionism in Pennsylvania. From 2000 to 2007, 82 (60%) of the nation's 137 teacher strikes occurred in Pennsylvania with 162,000 innocent children affected over the last five school years. Pennsylvania retains the dubious distinction of being the teacher-strike capital of the United States, while thirty-seven (37) other states prohibit teacher strikes. Recent strike threats such as those seen at Cumberland Valley and Northwest Area school districts cost taxpayers millions of dollars because paying a monopoly union not to strike is like paying a bank robber not to rob your bank."

Campbell has been working for years to bring Pennsylvania in line with the majority of states, which prohibit strikes by teachers.

"Public employees seeking to become President or employees hired locally by school districts are all public servants. Ejecting innocent children from school for personal financial gain is totally unacceptable. Every candidate for federal, state and local office must be held accountable for this abuse of children. They either support teacher strikes or they do not. There is no middle ground. Pennsylvania's voters should ask every candidate where they stand -- and should not tolerate any political double-talk."

Despite the propaganda from the teachers' unions, Pennsylvania teachers are among the top paid in the country, Campbell says.

"Pennsylvania's teachers rank among the highest paid in the nation (top 20%), and enjoy fantastic benefits and job security. Meanwhile everyday families struggle to pay Pennsylvania's escalating school property taxes -- caused in no small part by the massive political clout of the National Education Association (NEA) and their powerful 185,000 member state affiliate, the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA)."