Ainsworth Elementary School vs Creston Elementary School

Creston Elementary School outranks Ainsworth Elementary School by 1.0 overall rating point — 9.6 versus 8.6 out of 10 — and that margin maps directly onto Oregon's statewide rankings. Creston sits at #4 of 1,226 Oregon elementary schools, placing it in the top 0.3% of the state. Ainsworth ranks #101, which puts it in the top 9% — a genuine achievement, but a different tier altogether. Both schools are in Portland and just 4.2 miles apart, yet their positions in the state hierarchy reflect meaningfully different performance trajectories.

Where the schools converge is raw academic proficiency: Ainsworth scores 9.9/10 and Creston scores 9.8/10, a difference of just 0.1 points. Where they split sharply is growth. Creston posts a 9.7/10 growth score against Ainsworth's 8.7/10 — a full point gap. Growth scores measure how much students advance relative to academic peers with similar starting points, so Creston is not just producing proficient students; it is accelerating them at a rate nearly unmatched in Oregon. That 1.0-point growth advantage is the primary engine behind Creston's higher overall rating.

The two schools serve starkly different populations. Ainsworth enrolls 585 students, 14% of whom qualify for free or reduced lunch, with a student-teacher ratio of 20.2:1. Creston is considerably smaller at 238 students, with 78% on free or reduced lunch and a student-teacher ratio of 15.9:1. Creston's #4 statewide ranking while serving a population where economic disadvantage is nearly five times more prevalent than at Ainsworth signals exceptionally effective instruction — the growth score of 9.7/10 is not happening despite the demographic profile, it is happening through it.

Both schools serve kindergarten through fifth grade, making them direct substitutes for Portland families with elementary-age children. The 4.2-mile distance is crossable, so school choice here is a real decision rather than a geography-forced one. At the classroom level, Creston's 15.9:1 student-teacher ratio means roughly four fewer students per teacher than Ainsworth's 20.2:1 — a gap that compounds across six years. Ainsworth's larger 585-student enrollment offers a broader peer community, while Creston's 238-student population creates a setting where students are far more likely to be known individually by staff.