What does this mean?
"They will have to really believe that all students can achieve high standards. This is a matter of faith as much as hard evidence and no one should underestimate the difficulty of achieving this shift, day to day, classroom to classroom across a country."

"They" are teachers and I can understand the first sentence but I am not sure about the latter one.
Especially, I am not sure what "matter of faith as much as hard evidence" mean.
Could you write it in another way?

Question

What does this mean?
"They will have to really believe that all students can achieve high standards. This is a matter of faith as much as hard evidence and no one should underestimate the difficulty of achieving this shift, day to day, classroom to classroom across a country."

"They" are teachers and I can understand the first sentence but I am not sure about the latter one.
Especially, I am not sure what "matter of faith as much as hard evidence" mean. 
Could you write it in another way?

Answer

It's something like "This is about faith (or trust), as much as it is about facts...", or "Both faith and facts are substantial factors here"
In other words - "the teachers have to believe in the children, as well as seeing the evidence. It is going to be a difficult task to achieve this change - in every classroom in the country"

Answer

Thanks a lot.