Figueroa Street Elementary vs Charles H. Kim Elementary

Charles H. Kim Elementary ranks #9 out of 9,533 California schools, placing it in the top 0.1% statewide. Figueroa Street Elementary earns a respectable #542 in that same pool — still top 6% — but the overall rating gap is a full point: 8.6 out of 10 for Figueroa Street Elementary versus 9.6 out of 10 for Charles H. Kim Elementary. For parents weighing two strong neighborhood elementary schools 9.5 miles apart in Los Angeles, that gap reflects meaningful differences across multiple dimensions.

Academically, Charles H. Kim Elementary scores 9.5 out of 10 against Figueroa Street Elementary's 8.1 — a 1.4-point difference that represents a substantial performance delta. Growth tells a similar story: Charles H. Kim Elementary posts a 9.8 out of 10 growth score versus Figueroa Street Elementary's 9.0, meaning students at Kim are advancing faster relative to their starting points as well. Both numbers together suggest Kim isn't merely serving higher-performing incoming students; it is also accelerating their progress at an exceptional rate compared to Figueroa Street Elementary.

The two schools serve demographically distinct populations despite both being LAUSD elementaries. Figueroa Street Elementary has a free and reduced-price lunch rate of 97%, compared to 88% at Charles H. Kim Elementary, indicating a higher concentration of economically disadvantaged families at Figueroa. Enrollment is comparable — 404 students at Figueroa Street Elementary versus 472 at Charles H. Kim Elementary — but the student-teacher ratio differs meaningfully: 21.3 students per teacher at Figueroa Street Elementary versus 18.2 at Charles H. Kim Elementary, giving Kim students roughly three fewer classmates competing for teacher attention on average.

Both schools serve grades KG through 05, so the program structure is equivalent at a headline level. The differentiation shows up in outcomes and resources rather than grade configuration. Figueroa Street Elementary's 9.0 growth score is genuinely strong and should not be dismissed — it outperforms most California elementary schools — but Charles H. Kim Elementary's combination of a near-perfect growth score and a top-10 statewide academic ranking makes it exceptional by any measure applied across the state.