THEY CERTAINLY DON’T WANT THEM TO: The Left thinks poor kids can’t learn.

“Progressives” seem hostile to the idea that schools can teach low-income students, writes Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic. Once moderate Democrats like Barack Obama backed reforms they hoped would improve achievement and provide upward mobility. Now, critics from the left “tend to dismiss any plan to close the achievement gap between rich and poor students.” They “support public schools as community centers and providers of child care and secure middle-class jobs,” but not as places to educate children.

Mississippi implemented “a set of educational reforms including teacher training, testing, retention (i.e., whether kids move forward or are held back), and a mostly phonics-based reading instruction,” and moved from 49th in the nation to the top 20 in a 10-year-period, Chait writes. “Adjusted for race and income, Mississippi now does a far better job of teaching literacy than do many northern states seen as leaders in public education.”

But left-wing critics of education reform aren’t cheering.

How will they keep them ignorant, dependent, and voting Democrat if they’re educated and upwardly mobile?