“More About the Neighborhood Than the School”: Leveraging “Don’t Know” Survey Responses to Probe Parental Evaluations of School Safety

We utilize original survey data to examine factors influencing parental assessment of schools. When asked a series of questions about their evaluation of hypothetical schools in a survey experiment, respondents were given the option to select “don’t know” and explain in their own words what additional information they would want to know about the school in order to make their decision. Respondents were especially likely to answer “don’t know” in response to a question about school safety. We explore patterns of “don’t know” responses through analysis of the open-ended answers that respondents provided. Rather than focusing solely on school characteristics, open-ended responses reveal that parents tend to worry about crime and safety issues in the neighborhoods surrounding schools. We discuss the implications of these findings for education policy, school practice, and education research methods.