The Fund for Educational Excellence went on a listening tour in neighborhoods across Baltimore this year and now are offering up a report on the passionate and sometimes sharply critical feedback they got.

A participant from Greater Rosemont, for example, recalled the light-bulb moment she had that drove home how much needs to be fixed in the city’s public schools.

“I worked at a college, and I was amazed that one year the salutatorian at a high school in Baltimore City had to take remedial courses,” the respondent said. “So she’s the third top student in the school. Why does she have to take remedial courses?”

Another person, a resident of the Howard Park/Arlington area, said teachers seem ready to teach but not prepared for the “real-life” challenges they would face in a Baltimore classroom.

“They did not come prepared for children who were angry and had been angry all their little lives,” this respondent said. “They weren’t prepared to have their own notions about race and class and poverty challenged.”

Another person made the case that sports, the arts, and other extra-curriculars are not really “extra,” they could be a child’s lifeline.

“[E]ven if you come from a very challenged background, if you have a drama teacher, if you have a soccer coach, or if you have an art teacher that will keep you in a place kind of like Creative Alliance, or Hampstead Hill, or a rec center and will be with you, engaging you until 8:30 or 8:00 at night, then you’re going to be okay,” said this person, who was from Highlandtown.

“As long as you’re sparked, as long as you’re invested, and you’re into it.”

To-Do List for Thornton

The purpose of the exercise for the group, a non-profit that works to support innovation and achievement in Baltimore schools, was to identify a set of priorities for new city schools CEO Gregory E. Thornton.

They spoke with 859 people in 55 communities, starting with Madison East and ending in Pigtown.

To read the full report, go here, but here are the four things, the study authors conclude, that Baltimore residents most want for their students:

• Increased parent and community involvement in schools coupled with more welcoming school environments.
• Talented teachers and other school staff who are invested in students
• Increased academic expectations for students along with the support they need to meet more rigorous standards and succeed beyond their high school years.
• Structured activities for children within and beyond the school day and the school year.

And here are the recommendations the fund came up with after listening to the feedback.

Create more welcoming school environments. This involves everyone in a school from front-office staff to teachers and support staff to the principal, and it’s not necessarily confined to the school building. Making a district-wide cultural shift to more open, responsive interactions with families and community members is a prerequisite for addressing many of the other concerns participants identified.

Leverage the tools at your disposal to reward, retain, and develop teachers. The compensation system created jointly by City Schools and the Baltimore Teachers Union pays teachers more for the things they do to improve their instruction and make learning gains with students. Continuing and refining that system, as well as using performance evaluations to inform professional development for individual teachers, will help to retain and develop talented, invested staff.

Develop a comprehensive set of college and career readiness benchmarks and report out to individual students and families where they are performing against these benchmarks. Creating an explicit road map to a bright future for students, then telling students where they are on track and where they are falling short, demonstrates high expectations. It also engages families as partners in college and career readiness.

Offer a wider variety of courses during school and more after-school activities for students. This might involve engaging with the Mayor’s office, other City agencies, university partners, and community organizations to allow students opportunities to explore new interests and figure out what they love to do. It would have the added benefit of keeping kids off the streets after school hours.