Since the passing of No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB), teacher autonomy over curricular decisions has been restricted. As a result, state and local school districts faced increased pressures to adopt highly prescriptive and standardized literacy curricular programmes. Given this context, literacy curriculum adoption has become a widely conflicted process in the US. In this article, a team of literacy researchers and educators examine the state of the literacy curriculum adoption process in nine schools across the US. Conducting a qualitative case study methodology, data were collected across nine school districts across the nation, using semi-structured interviews. Analysis included viewing the curricular adoption process using the Policy Attributes Theory. Findings reveal that principals and teachers continue to have limited autonomy in the literacy curriculum adoption processes. The article provides implications for research and practice that considers the important role of a variety of stakeholders in the curriculum adoption process and a call for literacy researchers to embrace an activist stance in the curriculum decision-making process in local and national contexts.