I would go so far as to argue that they in fact do desire the ill-education of the remainder of the populations' children (at least, on some unconscious level)

I would go so far as to argue that they in fact do desire the ill-education of the remainder of the populations' children (at least, on some unconscious level) as an advantage given to everyone is no advantage at all, and one's success is always measured in relation to another lack thereof. The two cannot be disentwined. My issue is that no child asks to be born. And that alone charges and commands us with a certain responsibility to insure that, upon reaching adulthood, or thereabouts, they are capable of exercising themselves in the world to the best of their ability, not that everything need be given, but that enough be given that they can ensure their own attempts to access their own desires. And I will say, that this stands doubly important in a democratic society, where they will grow to have just as much power and say so, in theory, as any other member of such a society. And to allow such a bifurcation in the fundamental educational strata, creates a two-classes society which, it would seem to me, most likely to gravitate toward either a set of demagogues ruling over such a body and turning their ignorance to their own despotic ends, or the return to a state of affairs whence it was considered acceptable and proper for only a certain segment the population, defined by money, or land, or familial prestige, who through these means were the rare few to have access to a said liberal education, are considered once again the natural rulers of the lives of the greater mass of people.