“Our Christian faith,” says David Montague, director of the Memphis Teacher Residency program, “informs our belief that every child can learn.”

"I feel the young people and children, adolescents, all of them, they all need an opportunity...they need a good education," says Sister Judith Lupo, head of Brazil's largest church-run social services agency.

"There are a lot of people in this country who are into dialogue, education, getting to know one another, trying to live together," says Rabbi Ron Kronish, director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Jerusalem.

“There is acute embarrassment that the second-fastest growing economy in the world has almost half of its children malnourished,” says social researcher Biraj Patnaik.

It is a painful rite of passage for girls in many African and Middle Eastern countries. But in Senegal there has been a remarkably successful campaign to change people's attitudes towards female circumcision in an effort to eliminate the practice altogether.

"These schools are the jewels of their neighborhood, and we need to save them," says Susan Work, president of Holy Family Ministries in Chicago.

"I think it's fair to say that Islam has had some difficulty in coming to terms with modernity," says sociologist of religion William Martin, who believes that the Gulen movement "offers a much more positive picture of what Islam can be."

"We hope to instill in our children what it takes to be a responsible, caring, and giving person who is God-conscious," says Kathy Jamil, principal of the Universal School in Buffalo.

"We do this not to create Catholics, but because we are Catholic. It’s the social justice teachings of the church that drive us," says WJA director of counseling services Ann Clark. The tuition-free middle school explicitly addresses the spiritual and moral development of its students.

Arizona gives tax credits to people who donate money to school tuition organizations that provide student scholarships. A group of taxpayers claims most of the money goes to religious education.