Advocate

Active advocacy builds and sustains public commitment to ongoing education for adults. Deborah Kennedy promotes sustainable quality educational options in adult foundational education, English as a second/additional language, adult secondary education, and career/technical education, building on her knowledge of the nationwide adult education landscape. Her commitment to making educational programming available and accessible to adults at all levels and life stages is unparalleled, and her work has inspired educators across the country to become advocates themselves.

• Advocacy messages build on an asset-oriented framework that depicts adult learners and adult education programs as essential contributors to the overall strengths and resilience of their communities.
• Perspectives on education for adults stress its role in building and sustaining a vibrant civil society in broadly applicable, nonpartisan ways.
• Advocacy strategies combine data on impacts with illustrations of what works and why to create connections that generate support from the broader community and responsiveness from policy makers.
• Online and in-person presentations describe advocacy as a key responsibility of adult education practitioners and provide step-by-step plans for developing advocacy skills.

Project Work

National Coalition for Literacy, Washington, DC ~ executive director

• Led federal-level advocacy initiatives promoting adult education nationwide.
• Worked with staff on Capitol Hill to provide briefings and information on return on investment for the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and related federal funding streams.
• Developed and provided webinars and conference presentations on advocacy as a key responsibility of adult education practitioners.
• Worked collaboratively with member organizations to maintain connections and ensure consistency in presentation of information.

Publication

A Framework for Asset-Focused Advocacy in Adult ESL Education (H. Linville & J. Whiting, Eds., Advocacy in English Language Teaching and Learning; Routledge, 2019).

Selected Presentations

American Library Association Annual Conference – panelist

• Going to the root: Libraries, literacy, and the interruption of generational poverty. Panel presentation with Matthew Desmond, Tracie D. Hall, Ken Bigger, and Federico Salas-Isnardi, June 2023.

TESOL International Association conferences – presenter and panelist

• Frames, facts, and stories: Advocating for results in ESOL. Presentation at WATESOL Conference, Washington, DC, November 2023.
• U.S. federal policy update. Panel presentation with R. Garza and J. Hutcheson, TESOL Advocacy Summit, Washington, DC, June 2023.
• Frames, facts, stories: Advocating for results in adult ESOL. Presentation at TESOL International Virtual Conference, March 2021.
• ESOL professionals as advocates for a full and fair Census count. Presentation at TESOL Virtual Advocacy Summit, June 2020.

ProLiteracy Conference – presenter

• Reinventing adult education for social and economic justice. Presentation with D. Rosen and S. Reder, ProLiteracy Conference, San Antonio, TX, October 2022.

COABE Conference – panel convener

• Policy issues affecting lifelong learning. Panel convener, Coalition for Adult Basic Education, Phoenix, AZ, March 2018.