From Our Partners and Team: Encouraging Trends in the Learning Ecosystem

Lasting change in learning doesn't come from any one organization steering alone. It emerges when those closest to the work—educators, researchers, families, young people, and community leaders—set the course. At the Foundation, we see our role as supporting from behind: connecting people and ideas, building and sharing knowledge, and investing for the long term so promising work can take root and grow. Like riding a tandem bicycle, progress depends on trust, shared momentum, and a clear sense of direction.

As we head into 2026, we asked partners and colleagues a simple question: What's one inspiring or encouraging trend you're watching for the future?

Their responses point to deeper shifts underway across the learning ecosystem.

Expanding Voice and Participation

Across research, community life, and civic leadership, there is a growing recognition that progress depends on widening who is seen, heard, and trusted as a source of knowledge and leadership—across generations, backgrounds, and first-hand experience.

Meghan Orman
Bezos Family Foundation, Jackie Bezos Researcher in Residence
One of the most encouraging trends I am seeing is how institutions are expanding who counts as a ‘knower’—making space for early-career, Indigenous, and community researchers whose lived experience shapes transformative, context-grounded science.

Janet Oh
CoGenerate, Senior Director of Innovation and Programs
Why are adults so intimidated by teens? Are we afraid of being “uncool”? Worried we represent the status quo? Or that next to their youth, we’ll suddenly feel old? I’ve been working closely with teens this year, and here’s what I’ve learned: They are eager—truly eager—to partner with older people. What they don’t want is to be dismissed or treated like someone’s child. They seek older adults who meet them with authenticity and confidence, and who will learn with and from them. As one of the teen leaders we interviewed put it: “We’re not from a different planet. We’re just a different generation.” 

Marilyn López
Bezos Family Foundation, Senior Program Officer
I’m encouraged by the growing recognition that strengthening democracy requires intergenerational, co-creative civic work, with organizations we support helping lead a shift toward shared power and shared purpose between young people and adults. I’m also heartened by the deeper commitment to youth participatory budgeting and grantmaking, especially among Native youth, which is expanding real decision-making authority and building long-term civic agency.

Civic Renewal Rooted in Place and Relationship

There is renewed attention to the idea that civic renewal is sustained locally—through relationships, shared responsibility, and culture that is practiced in real time.

Andrew Nalani
Bezos Family Foundation, Jackie Bezos Researcher in Residence
There is momentum building around experiential civics among philanthropists, researchers and community organizations. I am interested in how this momentum will spark innovative programs and lines of inquiry leading up to America’s 250th and beyond.

Eric Liu
Citizen University, CEO
I am excited that all across the field of civic renewal and youth empowerment, people are paying more attention to the centrality of local civic culture. The more nationalized and dehumanizing politics become, the more important it is to cultivate new habits, rituals, and shared experiences that are rooted in place and relationship. That’s how Citizen University has always worked, especially with young people, and we are seeing more Americans awakening to the power and promise of the local.

Andrew Pope
Scholars Strategy Network (SSN), Director of Policy
In the past year, I have been inspired by how SSN’s Education Scholar Training Program fellows navigated a rapidly changing federal policy landscape. They formed relationships and shared research findings with federal policymakers, and the federal work proceeded. Scholars dug in at the state level, too—paving a path forward for ensuring even the most vulnerable students have the resources and support to succeed from pre-K through college. I am looking forward to seeing how this work continues to shape education policy and, in turn, how these experiences shape the future research of the fellows.

Tracy L. Canard Goodluck (Oneida Nation & Mvskoke)
Center for Native American Youth (CNAY), Executive Director
Civic identity is rooted in Indigenous teachings, in how we interact with one another and create better outcomes for our society. Within Indian Country, both youth and Tribal leaders have been passionate about ensuring sovereignty is at the forefront of all conversations. At CNAY, we look forward to being part of that movement—anchoring sovereignty, self-determination and governance across all our work and networks. We believe Native youth are worthy of a leading role in our communities.

Strengthening Families and Early Childhood Systems

There is ever-growing recognition that families, early educators and support in the earliest years of life are foundational to long-term learning, health, and opportunity, with practice and policy increasingly moving in alignment.

Cam Clark
Bezos Family Foundation, Senior Program Officer
In a tough environment, states and communities are taking the lead in building stronger early childhood systems, from policies like paid family leave in places like Alabama to universal child care in New Mexico. Grassroots networks and policy work are increasingly building power to make sure the well-being of families is a priority.

Lori Fresina
Voices for Healthy Kids—American Heart Association, National Vice President, Executive Director
I’m encouraged by two trends. First, the growing bipartisan momentum for paid family and medical leave signals a real mindset shift. Second, the increased focus on raising new revenue for services for infants, toddlers, and their families—not just reallocating the pie, but making it bigger. Both trends reflect a deeper commitment to supporting families from the very start.

Jen Bradwell
MAKE A CIRCLE + The RAISE Initiative Filmmaker
The decades-long gap between what we know about early brain development and how we value early care and education is finally starting to close. Through our documentary and the stories it’s inspired others to share, we’re helping recast early educators as so much more than just “the workforce behind the workforce,” but keystones of their community and force multipliers for a thriving society—voices that can help ensure our country properly invests in an early care and education system that works for all.

Community-Led Innovation and Asset-Based Approaches

Across a range of contexts, communities are increasingly being recognized as sources of innovation—bringing strengths, creativity, and locally grounded solutions to longstanding challenges in learning and education.

Dr. Daniel Velasco
Ensemble Learning, President & CEO
One trend that gives me a lot of optimism is the shift toward asset-based, high-rigor instructional models for multilingual learners. More districts are moving past watered-down remediation and instead investing in bi-literacy, discourse-rich classrooms, enhancing teacher and leader capacity, and creating strong newcomer pathways where multilingual learners can thrive.

As we head into 2026, I’m watching how this shift is empowering educators, strengthening family engagement, and building educational environments where students’ home languages are treated as accelerators—not barriers. That evolution feels both overdue and genuinely inspiring.

Daniel Meekins
Bezos Family Foundation, Senior Program Officer
I used to think innovation started in big cities and then spread to smaller, rural districts. What I’ve learned in my career is the opposite: rural schools and districts are often the most innovative because they have to be. Creativity is required to meet student needs with limited resources. I’m especially encouraged by our rural partners who are not only leading with a rural-first lens but also sharing their work and narrative more broadly so others can see rural communities as engines of innovation. 

Taylor McCabe-Juhnke
Rural Schools Collaborative, Executive Director
I am energized by the growing local, regional, and national recognition of the strengths and assets within rural places. Rural schools, students, and teachers are at the heart of their communities, and uplifting their innovation and assets is long overdue. Thank you to all who continue to be a part of the ongoing dialogue to celebrate rural places and people.

Natasha Kamrani
Organizer Zero, Executive Director
Parents closest to the problem of educational injustice are now shaping the solutions themselves, driving changes from clearer report cards to citywide literacy priorities. Parents are shifting from being merely informed to truly empowered. This transformation points to a future where systems partner with families to create breakthrough outcomes, and in 2026, we hope to see even more parents at the helm, elevating the urgency and possibilities of K-12 education.

Culture, Care, and Meaning-Making for Lifelong Learning

Alongside structural change, there is renewed attention to the human dimensions of learning—joy, purpose, care, and storytelling—as essential forces that shape belonging, motivation and possibility over a lifetime.

Lis Stevens
Bezos Family Foundation, Senior Program Officer
I see individuals and organizations stretching in creative, brave and loving ways to provide care and support—helping build a culture where care and caregiving are recognized as essential and collective well-being is a shared responsibility.

Sharif El-Mekki
Center for Black Educator Development, CEO and Founder
What gives me optimism is watching funders lean into the power of convening and coalition-building. When philanthropy brings people together—educators, families, funders and community partners—we can align around what research tells us about how children and youth learn and what teachers need to succeed. Sharing our collective expertise helps us design practical teaching apprenticeships, expand access to strong mentoring, and ensure future teachers are prepared for the classrooms they’ll lead. Investments that knit together these partnerships don’t just grow the workforce—they create lasting conditions for students to thrive. That’s the kind of investment and support our communities need.

Suzanne Metcalf
Raising a Reader, Director of MarCom
A cultural recommitment to the joy of reading. As recent research from the Pew Research Center and others has shown, reading-for-pleasure has declined in the U.S.—but it has also sparked a remarkable countermovement focused on restoring joy and meaning through books. Across the country, schools and community partners are hosting reading festivals, building diverse book collections, and creating opportunities that bring stories to life for children. This growing momentum reflects a deeper cultural belief: that joyful reading is foundational to connection, curiosity and lifelong learning.

TeRay Esquibel
Purpose Commons, Executive Director
I am encouraged by a growing shift across the field to see purpose not as something you must find, but as something that is cultivated, maintained, and nurtured over time. I have seen genuine relief in the faces of young people and adults alike when they realize they haven’t missed their chance or aren’t required to have everything figured out right now. This reframe opens new possibilities for how we think about youth development outcomes and the systems that shape them. Even more exciting is the collective momentum forming around this work, and what becomes possible when we commit to nurturing purpose across generations and throughout our systems.

Elyse Rowe
Bezos Family Foundation, Managing Director of Communications
I’m inspired by seeing storytelling used not just to raise awareness, but to change how people understand one another and the systems that shape our lives. Whether through young people being trusted to tell their own stories and share their expertise, or through grantees pairing clear evidence with compelling narratives, this work can shift public understanding and expand our sense of what’s possible.

Looking Ahead

Taken together, these perspectives point to a field in motion—one shaped and shared by learning, reimagining who leads and how systems work, and what it takes to create lasting conditions for learning and collective well-being.