Anansi Charter School

Anansi Charter School is a K–8 charter school in El Prado, New Mexico, just outside Taos, serving 198 students within the Taos Municipal Schools district. It is mid-sized for its area and the strongest performer in its neighborhood: it ranked 52nd of 346 elementary schools statewide in 2025–2026 — the 85th percentile, 4 stars — even though the district it belongs to ranks 42nd of 87.

Anansi leads every nearby school in all three tested subjects. All-grade proficiency is 65.89% in language arts, 44.19% in math and 61.36% in science, versus state averages of 43.34%, 25.54% and 33.40% — roughly 19 to 28 points above the state. It tops Taos Integrated School Of Arts (54.92% language arts, 38.52% math), Taos Municipal Charter (55.41%, 24.32%), Arroyo Del Norte Elementary (48.84%, 27.91%), Enos Garcia Elementary (46.62%, 13.51%) and Taos International School (27.88%, 11.32%). Math is about double the district's and 1.6 times the next-best local school. Middle grades stand out — several nearby schools don't test grades 6–8 at all — with 7th-grade language arts at 84.21% and 8th-grade at 76.19%. The one local exception is 4th-grade language arts, where Arroyo Del Norte (73.33%) edges Anansi (61.90%).

Two things are worth watching. Proficiency has softened over three years: language arts from 80% to 65.89%, math from 60% to 44.19%, and science from 68% to 61.36% — the lowest figures in the record shown, though still well above state and still 85th percentile. Meanwhile, the school serves its student groups well: its low-income subgroup ranked 94th percentile statewide in 2024–25 and special education 92nd percentile, top 2% to top 8% in recent years. With only 198 students, grade-level results rest on small groups, so year-to-year changes are best read as directional, and 3rd-grade math is suppressed by the state.