Commonwealth Avenue Elementary vs Third Street Elementary

Third Street Elementary ranks #8 of 9,533 California schools, placing it among the state's top 0.1 percent of public elementary schools. Commonwealth Avenue Elementary ranks #110 of 9,533 — still an elite position, landing in the top 1.2 percent statewide. Both schools sit within 2.8 miles of each other in Los Angeles, yet that distance spans a meaningful gap in how each school performs relative to the full California elementary landscape.

On academics, the separation is concrete: Third Street Elementary scores 10.0/10 against Commonwealth Avenue Elementary's 8.5/10 — a 1.5-point gap that reflects a measurably stronger tested-proficiency ceiling. Growth scores are closer but still favor Third Street Elementary, 9.9/10 to Commonwealth Avenue Elementary's 9.5/10, meaning students at Third Street are gaining ground slightly faster year-over-year relative to their starting points. Both schools show genuine strength in growth, but Third Street's academic floor is simply higher.

The demographic profiles differ sharply. Commonwealth Avenue Elementary serves 506 students, 87 percent of whom qualify for free or reduced-price lunch — a figure that marks a predominantly low-income community. Third Street Elementary enrolls 691 students with a 43 percent free/reduced-lunch rate, reflecting a more economically mixed population. Classroom density diverges as well: Commonwealth Avenue Elementary runs a 17.4-to-1 student-teacher ratio versus Third Street Elementary's 22.3-to-1, giving Commonwealth Avenue students materially more individual teacher access on average.

Both schools cover kindergarten through fifth grade, so families aren't choosing between different grade spans. The practical distinction is this: Third Street Elementary achieves exceptional academic outcomes at scale with a larger, more mixed-income enrollment, while Commonwealth Avenue Elementary delivers comparable growth in a smaller, more intimate classroom setting with a student body that skews lower-income — and succeeds at it remarkably well given that context.