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Teaching moral development is a process, the lessons more complex as the child grows up. "You can teach the little ones right and wrong pretty easily. As they get older, the areas of gray become more complex. We believe that besides being intentional, it needs to be systematic," said Sipos of her organization, a national nonprofit that works primarily with schools on character education.

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While parents take seriously the task of teaching children values, a new Pew Research Center survey released Thursday shows a gulf between how conservatives and liberals, women and men, young and old and different races order the values they believe children should be taught.

The report, "Teaching the Children: Sharp Ideological Differences, Some Common Ground," looked at 12 different qualities parents might try to inculcate in children. It found chasms between liberals and conservatives, but also near universal agreement despite ideological differences.

"We found a remarkable amount of consensus about certain traits responsibility, hard work, helping others," said Jocelyn Kiley, Pew associate director of research and one of the report's authors. "There are also some rather striking differences across ideological groups."

People categorized as "consistent conservatives," for example, tended to place a high premium on teaching children religious faith, while "consistent liberals" did not. The consistent liberals found great value in teaching tolerance, which was much lower on the conservatives' priority list. Curiosity ranks high on liberal rankings, but low for conservatives. Obedience comes in last on the consistent liberal list and was ranked fifth among consistent conservatives.

The report noted that women and men had similar priorities, although women listed helping others and empathy as important more often than men did. Women put a "somewhat higher priority" on teaching religious faith.

Breaking the priorities down by age showed differences in valuing obedience 68 percent of those 65 and older prioritize it, compared to 56 percent for those younger than 30.

World as classroom

Numerous surveys, studies and organizations have looked at how kids learn character and values.

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Liberals teach kids tolerance over faith; conservatives teach kids faith over tolerance, new survey finds