Our children should never have to fight for the basics of safety, literacy, and dignity. And yet across this country, parents and community organizers are pulled into battles that school systems, districts, and policymakers should have resolved long before our kids ever stepped into a classroom. We are standing in the gap for their right to read, their right to an education that actually prepares them, and their right to a future that is not constrained by a system intentionally built to fail them.

But those of us rooted in organizing know a deeper truth: defending what’s ours has never been enough. We organize to build. To build systems, schools, and communities that finally reflect the brilliance and potential of every child.

For generations especially Black, Brown, and underserved families—parents have been forced to do the work systems refused to do. We built schools when systems refused. We demanded accountability when institutions ignored our children’s brilliance. And we refused to accept that the quality of a child’s education should depend on ZIP code, race, or access to wealth.

Today, that fight has a new front literacy, the very foundation on which every other academic and economic opportunity depends. Millions of students are leaving school without the ability to read proficiently. Behind every statistic is a child whose access to opportunity, civic engagement, and economic mobility is being stolen. Reading is not just a skill it is access: access to knowledge, opportunity, and the power to shape one’s life. And when children cannot read, every other door begins to close.

Parents live this reality in ways that numbers cannot capture: the frustration on a child’s face during homework, the heaviness in a parent’s chest when progress reports don’t match their child’s potential, the quiet fear that their brilliance is slipping through the cracks. Our children are not the problem. The system is.

That is why parents organize. That is why the Parent Power Collective exists. A national movement of families refusing to accept a status quo where millions of children fall through the cracks. We step forward not just for our own kids, but as leaders shaping the future of education for all.

The Reading Excellence and Achievement for Development (READ) Act gives parents something they’ve demanded for decades: a federal commitment to evidence-based literacy instruction and real transparency when children struggle. It aligns federal investments with research-backed literacy practices, supports coaching networks, high-impact tutoring, early literacy screenings, and ensures teachers are prepared to teach the science of reading effectively. For too long, families have watched their children struggle while systems offered excuses instead of solutions. It centers families, requiring schools to notify parents when children are struggling and to outline clear intervention plans.

But legislation alone will not solve this crisis. Policy only becomes real when families have the power, tools, and organizing muscle to ensure it’s implemented with urgency and integrity. That is the heart of the National Parents Union’s Kids First Agenda: economic security, health, safety, and education are all connected. Every child deserves the resources, protections, and supports that allow them to thrive. Literacy is the gateway to all of it.

Organizing reminds us that change rarely begins in legislative chambers. It begins in living rooms, in school hallways, and in community gatherings where families come together to demand better. Parents have always been the first teachers. The fiercest advocates. The most consistent champions of our children’s futures.

We are not just defending our children from systems that fall short. We are building the future they deserve, a future rooted in literacy, dignity, and possibility. And when parents move together, we don’t just fight to defend, we fight to build.

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