Last week, USC went on a media blitz sharing the success of Foshay Learning Center. Foshay is a public school operated by LAUSD that is part of USC’s Neighborhood Academic Initiative. This year, Foshay Learning Center had more students enrolled in USC’s freshman class than any other school. 19 of their students enrolled at USC this year – beating out the numbers put up by private schools and wealthier public schools.
But Foshay’s enrollment numbers are actually even more impressive than it Sounds.
Earlier this year, I analyzed the UC acceptance data for LAUSD schools. What I found was that raw numbers of acceptances did not make sense. It was simply not fair to analyze the number of students who get accepted or enroll at a school – you have to look at the percent of the senior class that enrolled.
For example – Foshay has 19 students enrolled at USC, while Palos Verdes Peninsula has 16. It doesn’t seem like three more students is that much of an margin of victory for Foshay. But Foshay’s senior class had only 151 students, while PVP had 608. So Foshay not only got more students into USC, but they got a much higher percentage of their senior class in.
Analyzing all of the schools in LA School Report’s article, we can see that Foshay isn’t just impressive – it is miraculous.
Source: LA School Report, California Department of Education Enrollment Data and California Department of Education Private Schools Directory.
Public schools (including magnets and charters) are colored red, while private schools are colored blue.
12.5% of Foshay’s senior class is enrolled at USC. Think about that – Foshay can say that 1 in 8 of their students get to go to USC, one of the best universities in the country. It towers over other schools in their enrollment at USC – far above other public schools and above all other private schools besides Buckley. On top of that, they also have very high UC acceptance rates – 25%, the 16th highest in the city.
What Foshay has done is quite impressive, and it proves that reform and success can come from within LAUSD.