Hillary Clinton says “educators will always have a partner in the White House” if she’s elected — and make no mistake about precisely whom she’s promising to protect.

“Supporting educators means supporting unions,” she told the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union. She even pledged her protection if “union-busting governors” or “hostile legislatures” try to limit collective-bargaining.

Unions first, in other words. Unlike education reformers, who argue that the priority should be ensuring that kids can learn.

Teachers unions like the NEA or the city’s United Federation of Teachers don’t fight for students. They fight to protect members and schools, even when they churn out kids unprepared for college or the workforce.

Unions object to holding incompetent educators accountable. And Hillary was quick to agree, declaring that “it’s time to stop focusing on, quote, failing schools.”

Under Hillary, in other words, teachers win — students pay the price. And when it comes to higher ed, it’s taxpayers who’d pay.

In a bid to woo Bernie Sanders’ endorsement and his voters, Hillary moved sharply left last week by stealing a large chunk of his “free college tuition for everyone” plan.

Her idea — free tuition at public in-state universities for families earning less that $125,000 — would cut fees for fully 80 percent of all families.

How much would it cost? Her campaign can’t (or won’t) say. But she’s already said her earlier, more modest “debt-free” plan would cost $750 billion over 10 years, with tens of billions more required from the states.

Neither plan, of course, came with any requirements that kids must learn anything.