If adversity reveals character, then New Yorkers just got their first true measure of rookie United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew.
The verdict: He’s a petulant, strutting bully, given to guttersnipe language — and a hypocrite, to boot.
Sure, it couldn’t have been easy for Mulgrew to watch the state Senate — usually putty in the UFT’s hands — vote overwhelmingly on Monday to more than double the number of charter schools operating statewide.
Union operatives reportedly threatened all but nuclear war to get senators to kill the bill — to no avail.
This after Mulgrew delivered a coarse temper-tantrum before the state teachers union’s annual convention.
His slur of choice for Schools Chancellor (and eloquent charter-school advocate) Joel Klein: “numbnuts.”
Clever, huh?
For better or worse, the UFT has been entrusted with the education of the vast majority of the city’s children. There are many reasons to believe it isn’t up to the task, but classless union leadership has never been part of the problem.
Until now, it seems.
Mulgrew also tells fibs.
He says charters have been “profiteering” off of city schoolkids. A UFT radio ad accuses “for-profit management companies” of being “more interested in making money” than educating kids.
But while more than 90 percent of city charters are not-for-profit, Mulgrew says, “How many profiteers are too many?”
Well, one — if his name is Mike Mulgrew: He makes $250,000 a year as UFT president, while scoring a lush expense account and a fat benefits package.
And he’s not alone on the gravy train.
As The Post’s Carl Campanile reported Monday, teacher dues finance a $200-million-a-year UFT operation, in which 68 staffers take home more than $130,000 each.
Meanwhile, along with its state affiliate, the union spent $5 million last year on lobbying — while slathering cash on the well-placed and influential.
The “community activists” at ACORN got $300,000, while the lobbying law firm that employs Gov. Paterson’s father pulled down $436,000 — and a Paterson political “consultant,” Bill Lynch, got $160,000 for “services.”
That’s a lot of cash to be laying out under any circumstances — but it does put the term “profiteer” in its proper perspective for this debate.
And the fact that it’s intended ultimately to kill charter schools — that is, to deny a fair shot at classroom success to poor kids — is simply disgraceful.
Mike Mulgrew has been on the periphery of the UFT for years. And now he’s stepped up in class.
Whether he has the class — and the talent — to do his new job remains very much to be seen.
He needs to can the name-calling.
And maybe he should ask himself why he went into teaching in the first place.
Hint: It’s about kids, Mr. Mulgrew.