Anywhere but Here: Neighborhood Violence and Local School Preferences in Baltimore City

In this study, we examine whether students in violent neighborhoods actively avoid their local school as a form of social and physical protection. Specifically, we use 10 years of administrative data (2010–2020) from the high school choice open enrollment program in the Baltimore City Public School System to evaluate the interaction between neighborhood violence and geographic proximity when predicting choice behavior. We find that, adjusting for observed school characteristics and constant unobserved student characteristics, students from more violent neighborhoods are substantially less likely to choose their closest school than are students in safer neighborhoods; even when the closest school is listed, it is ranked lower for students from more violent neighborhoods than for students in safer ones. These findings have implications for how we think about the relationship between neighborhoods and educational opportunity in an era of choice.