People often ask me when thinking about empowering women, or improving women's health, what the one intervention is that will work to fix the major problems that we face as we try to improve the world? And most people would come up with education for girls as the key intervention, the magic answer to the huge problems that we are trying to solve, that are epitomized, highlighted by the United Nations Millennium Goals. And that we take up as we move through the weeks of thisclass. And true enough, education of girls comes as close as almost anything to being that magic intervention. This week as we begin to look at the issues of childhood, we focus first on education. The World Bank, a major funder of international development programs, concluded that they would focus on girls' education. Because it had been shown to lower rates of HIV/AIDS, reduce teenage pregnancy, improve maternal health, reduce infant mortality, not to mention, improve the economies of countries in which girls' education programs were being implemented. And so, in recent years, there has been a tremendous focus on girls' education. As a result, more girls and boys are going to school in virtually all countries in the world. There are still gaps between girls' and boys' education, but a lot of progress has been made. These successful development accomplishments are certainly to be appreciated. But I want to stress, as I have in previous commentaries during this class, that if we wish to transform the situation of humankind, we should be supporting girls' education not just to meet these development goals, but also because to educate girls is the fair thing to do. It is only just that girls should have equal opportunities with boys to get a good education. Education is not only a powerful means to solve economic problems, it is also a route toward a more just society. Please read the first half of chapter three in my book, From Outrage to Courage. In this chapter, I discuss the hope of education and provide background about what is happening with regard to this issue in various countries around the world. At the end of the chapter, there are examples of women's groups that are focusing on girls' education. You may know of other groups that are doing similar work in your part of the world, and if you do, you might want to write to us on our forums, to tell us about them, and share that information with our students around the world.