A government studies teacher at Washington Irving High School in Manhattan is making his first run for elective office by taking on an incumbent who angered the teachers’ union. Twenty-year veteran teacher Gregg Lundahl says he entered the Democratic primary because East Side Assemblyman Jonathan Bing introduced a bill this year to get rid of the “last hired, first fired” policy in the event of teacher layoffs.

That’s right: A union-backed, union-approved, union member is running for office in an effort to roll back reforms and maintain the status quo for teachers unions.

It’s one thing for teachers unions to donate money. The American Federation of Teachers, for example, has donated $27.7 million to political campaigns over the last two decades, $27.4 million of which went to Democrats. In other words, literally 99 percent of their political donations went to Democratic candidates. The National Education Association isn’t much better: They have donated $30.6 million in the same timeframe, $28.5 million of which went to Democrats. That’s “only” 93 percent; compared to the AFT, they’re paragons of bipartisanship.

Still, there’s a difference between funding a candidate and putting one of your own on the ballot. One wonders what the voters will make of this situation.

The Times has now released the entire database, and reactions from teachers have been mixed. Though a few thanked the Times for revealing that they needed improvement, others dug in their heels. “Guilty as charged,” wrote Elizabeth Ellen Snyder, one of the teachers who was evaluated. “I am proud to be ‘less effective’ than some of my peers because I chose to teach to the emotional and academic needs of my students.”

This comment is, at best, ludicrous, and, at worst, an indicative insight into the mindset of bad teachers and the unions that protect them who think they are above being judged based on their performance. It’s possible that Ms. Snyder has been unfairly maligned, but if she were truly teaching to the academic needs of your students, she wouldn’t have been rated poorly. Second of all, while her commitment to the emotional well-being of your charges is admirable, she shouldn’t use it as a crutch to explain your poor performance. Finally, why couldn’t she follow the footsteps of your fellow teachers who said that their ranking showed they “have more room for improvement,” as Monica L. Petit did?

It’s easy to see why teachers unions are fighting tooth and nail against the implementation of value-added analyses; they don’t want to show how many of their members are as stubborn as Ms. Snyder. But don’t the parents of our children deserve to know the quality of education their kids are receiving?

We’re glad to see that the United Federation of Teachers agrees! But we’re sad to see that they only think they should have the ability to fire poor workers and that nobody else should:

In a move of stunning hypocrisy, the United Federation of Teachers axed one of its longtime employees — for trying to unionize the powerful labor organization’s own workers, it was charged yesterday.

Jim Callaghan, a veteran writer for the teachers union, told The Post he was booted from his $100,000-a-year job just two months after he informed UFT President Michael Mulgrew that he was trying to unionize some of his co-workers. …

“I told him I want to have the same rights that teachers have,” said Callaghan, 63, of Staten Island. “He told me he didn’t want that, that he wanted to be able to fire whoever he wanted to.

“Stunning hypocrisy” is right. Given the evidence that there are few things more detrimental to the development of a child than having a bad teacher, it’s imperative that school districts be given wider latitude to get poor-performing educators out of the classroom and away from our kids — the same kind of latitude that Mulgrew covets for his massively bureaucratic organization.

In other words, school districts have promised too much money to too many people. They — and we, the citizens who fund them — simply don’t have the money to sustain this kind of largesse. So the school districts should shrink, right?

Wrong! Just as unions were being forced to think about making some minor concessions — like, say, giving up the Viagra in their health care plans — the federal government came along and bailed them out. Instead of having needed layoffs or reductions in benefits, the feds pumped billions of dollars into the system. The result?

In some cases, unions have prevented state and local governments from making needed cuts in their budgets. For example, earlier this year the Milwaukee School Board announced that it was laying off 428 teachers due to budget shortfalls. The average Milwaukee teacher receives only $56,000 per year in salary, but also gets a generous $40,000 in benefits, including a health care plan that costs $26,000 per family, compared to $14,500 for private employees. The school board sought to cut costs and to keep the teachers by implementing cuts in benefits. A proposed health care plan would have instituted co-pays expected to yield $47.2 million in savings, more than enough to save every teacher’s job. The union refused to bargain, instead opting for layoffs.

Why opt for layoffs when you know that your cronies on Capitol Hill and in the White House will just bail you out and keep the money flowing? Why make concessions when the feds will step in any time you run into a little bit of trouble? It’s impossible to bargain with unions when they have the unlimited backing of the federal government and legislators in their pocked who don’t care a whit about running up the national deficit.

Mr. Obama reiterated that the administration will put its weight behind it. “We are going to keep on fighting to pass the Employee Free Choice Act,” he told the 54 executive council members and others in the room. “We also know what and who is standing in the way of progress,” he said, adding that it will be “tough” to get the bill through the Senate and will take time to reverse the impact of “at least eight years in which there was a profound animosity toward the notion of unions.”

Mr. Obama also reminded the labor officials of the ways in which the administration has already supported unions, in part by wielding executive powers for actions that don’t require legislation.

“There’s a reason why we nominated people to the National Mediation Board that would ensure that folks in the rail and air” industries can organize, said Mr. Obama, referring to the board’s overhaul in May of a decades-old rule that had made it harder for airline and railway workers to unionize. He also cited the Democrats he nominated to the National Labor Relations Board to “restore some balance” to the group, which supervises union elections and referees disputes between private-sector employers and employees.