EveryLibrary Applauds Reintroduction of the Federal Right to Read Act of 2025
EveryLibrary applauds U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) and U.S. Representative Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ-07) for introducing the Right to Read Act. This bold federal legislation that directly addresses America's literacy crisis, restores investment in school libraries, and reaffirms every student's First Amendment right to read.
At a time when the federal Department of Education is being dismantled, and reading scores for nine-year-olds have fallen to their lowest level since 1990, and book bans in K-12 reach historic levels, this bill meets the urgency of the moment with evidence-based solutions. The Right to Read Act expands federal investment in literacy, strengthens school library staffing and collections, supports family literacy programs, and protects students' freedom to access diverse materials in their schools.
"This bill represents exactly the kind of sustained federal leadership our students need," said John Chrastka, Executive Director of EveryLibrary. "Strong, professionally staffed school libraries are one of the most powerful tools we have to improve literacy, close opportunity gaps, and defend the freedom to read in a time of accelerating censorship."
The need is clear and deeply inequitable. Nearly 8,830 public schools still lack a school library, and 17,000 more operate without a full- or part-time librarian, with high-poverty students disproportionately affected. At the same time, our colleagues at PEN America documented 6,870 book bans last school year alone, and nearly 23,000 bans since 2021.
The Right to Read Act would reauthorize the Comprehensive Literacy State Development program at $500 million. This literacy program aims to advance literacy skills, including pre-literacy skills, reading, and writing, for children from birth through grade 12, with an emphasis on disadvantaged children, including children living in poverty, English learners, and children with disabilities.
The Act would reauthorize Innovative Approaches to Literacy at $100 million. In school districts from Elmira, NY., to the Iditarod Area School District in AK, and the Colorado City Unified School District in AZ., previous IAL grants have gone directly to fund collection development and certified school librarian positions. With a renewed focus on investing in the recruitment and retention of state-certified school librarians, the Right to Read Act would expand those opportunities.
An essential part of the Right to Read Act is that it would also reinforce First Amendment protections for school libraries at the federal level. This bill does not just respond to falling literacy scores. It pushes back against politically motivated censorship, restores professional standards in school libraries, and affirms that every child in America has a constitutional guarantee to access to books, ideas, and opportunity, no matter their ZIP code.
We would like to thank Representative Adelita Grijalva (AZ-7) and Senator Jack Reed (RI) for putting the Right to Read Act back in front of Congress. EveryLibrary urges Congress to advance H.R.6440 / S.3365, the Right to Read Act of 2025, swiftly, and calls on library advocates, educators, parents, and students across the country to join in pushing this legislation forward. You can take a stand and send a message to your members of Congress now. Last session, we helped over 10,500 Americans take action. This session, we want to see 25,000 constituents stand up and insist Congress pass this comprehensive legislation to expand literacy services while safeguarding the rights of students to read.