Recognizing the vast disparities in academic achievement throughout Arizona's public schools, the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) has recently started pushing for tougher standards and demanding for more school accountability. This study analyzes the ranking system implemented by the ADE that categorizes all public schools according to ridged educational characteristics. While standardized test scores and dropout statistics are touted by many as solid examples of aspects by which schools should be judged, this work presents multiple alternative social trends that are overlooked in the ranking process. Publicly accessible data is used to demonstrate commonalities between all Arizona high schools that reported test scores for language-minority students during the 2003-2004 school year. Instead of ranking schools according to a single monolithic system, environmental factors such as school size, teacher turn over ratio, and the socioeconomic level of the surrounding community need to be seen as significantly contributing to the overall level of student achievement. This paper contains various tables based on data taken from the ADE website. Furthermore, the bibliography includes eleven academic sources. (Contains 5 tables.)