Over the past decade, widespread prioritization of fact-based, research-driven social policy led the way to a reconceptualization of public institutions and their relationships with place-based communities and their diverse constituents. Now, social policy is integrated across health, housing, economic and education agencies to create comprehensive webs of care and concern focused on children and the adults who care for them. Freedom Opportunity Standards (FOS), with a baseline set at the federal level, are agreed upon by community members, local businesses, public institutions and other stakeholders to guide ecosystem goal setting and strategies so that they ensure equitable access to opportunities for living lives of dignity. The FOS have enabled universal access to important forms of infrastructure such as high-speed broadband internet, as well as access to affordable or free public transportation. They have also paved the way for universal guarantees for basic incomes, food, jobs, health care and housing. As a result, FOS have helped reduce the rates of diseases of despair and have created a sense of security that has improved children’s and families’ mental health and their sense of hope for the future.

Opportunities for, and participation in, civic engagement are at all-time highs. Election Day is a holiday. Constituent-driven town hall interactions are facilitated by youth and intergenerational teams. These interactions are conducted both in-person and remotely, with virtual reality and locally controlled social media platforms helping community members and institutions hear diverse perspectives, work across differences and creatively imagine future projects and aspirations.

In most states, the care-based ecosystems support education through healthy partnerships, listening and dialogue circles, and inclusive decision-making bodies involving local school leaders, parents, students and government entities. Informed by the FOS, they collaborate to support the co-creation of learning structures and experiences, measures of success and accountability mechanisms that meet diverse needs and aspirations. Community educational councils collaborate to set agendas and provide oversight. Reflecting broad representation from various neighborhoods, agency stakeholders, educators and students, they make recommendations to guide educational decision-making and design of educational programs. These councils inform curriculum reviews, improvements to assessment methods, the creation of partnerships for youth-led projects and inquiry research on topics such as equitable access to climate preparedness. The councils’ participatory processes are valued as ways of creating inclusion and transparency to help sustain liberatory education and anticipate potential opposition. Governance positions in the councils rotate among community members, including students. People holding them are supported and trained to perform their duties.

Local schools and districts have morphed into diverse structures, networks and models of learning that reflect the broader school community’s cultures, wisdom and knowledge bases. They foster a deep sense of belonging among families, educators and learners. Sometimes conflict about issues related to content, curriculum or priorities emerges among school communities. These disputes are mostly resolved through inclusive processes that are accepted as part of the hard work of cultivating interdependence and sustaining a care-based ecosystem. The outcome is that each learner experiences an environment of care and feels seen, heard and valued. They know that they matter, and they know that the people who care for, coach and mentor them also matter.

With the switch to a care-based education ecosystem, teaching in public schools has broken out of the constraints of its White-dominant, 19^th-century origins. Educator roles have expanded to include a wide range of learning partners, mentors and guides who come from elders, adults and student peers alike. Educator training has been overhauled to center around human developmental needs. It also emphasizes anti-oppression, the cultivation of conditions for healthy brain development and relationship-driven strategies as being fundamental to teaching practice. Over the past decade, intentional recruitment of, and support for, diverse educators has grown the ranks of those representing Black, Indigenous, people of color and the LGBTQ+ and disability communities.

Pedagogy is an active area of professional development, with educators reaching into rich legacies to expand models of leadership, community building and teaching. These legacies include Black literary societies, Indigenous knowledge frameworks, inclusive innovation strategies from queer communities and other critical analysis methods that help educators remake teaching and learning by leveraging their own cultural traditions and strategies.