The stories have to come from what they have seen of children. Leaders build coalitions. Rockland County educators joined forces with elected officials, human services, business, parents, and many county officials because that's the only way they could be certain to get all children to school ready to learn and then out of school fully educated. Leaders build capacity. When the School Boards Association conducted several community training sessions in Roosevelt to encourage participation in school board elections, that created capacity to do the public's business.
Leaders talk about results.
The superintendents who got ahead of the report cards last January by telling the story to the press before they were called offered a great example. Leaders know people. Leaders need to pay attention to the followers. Leaders are urgent. When the kids can't read, we should study the data, but we don't need to analyze the problem to death.