Milagro Middle

Milagro Middle is a grades 7–8 school with 329 students at 351 W. Zia Road in Santa Fe, New Mexico, part of Santa Fe Public Schools, a district that itself ranks below the New Mexico average.

Nearly every student at Milagro is economically disadvantaged, and the school has ranked in the bottom quartile statewide for most of the past decade; it currently sits at the 21st percentile with one star. The defining academic pattern is a wide gap between reading and math. In English language arts, 36.96% of students are proficient — a lag behind the district (42.65%) and state (44.66%), but not a crisis. In math, just 13.44% are proficient, less than half the state's 27.85% and about half of the district's rate. Eighth-grade science, at 22.82%, is roughly two-thirds of the state figure. Compared with Edward Ortiz Middle, the nearest school, which shares the same district and a 100% low-income population, Milagro nearly doubles its ELA proficiency and more than triples its 8th-grade science results. Pojoaque Middle outscores Milagro in reading and science but has far lower math (7.94%), so the two have opposite profiles. Milagro outscores Pecos Middle in every measurable subject, though Pecos's math and science are reported only as ceilings (under 10% and under 20%). Sixth Grade Academy serves only grade 6, so it does not overlap Milagro's grades.

Two findings stand out beyond the math gap. English learners rank at the 3rd percentile statewide (105th of 108 schools) — the school's only zero-star subgroup and its sharpest outlier. Meanwhile, low-income students have held at exactly the 28th percentile for three straight years, slightly above the school's overall rank, suggesting a stable instructional floor that has not yet moved. Class size does not appear to be the lever: Milagro's 11.8 student–teacher ratio is smaller than Pojoaque's or Pecos's, and Ortiz has the smallest classes in the group with the weakest results.