-make teachers more accountable for their students success and make tenure based on that...-Teachers should be paid according to how well their students perform/improvements made.
If you throw out the tests, how do you know if students were successful or not, or whether they improved?
>how do you know if students were successful or not
Well, we'd first have to work out why they're there in the first place. Are we trying to maximize their income when they get jobs (in which case there are better metrics, but they'll take longer before you can use them)?. Are we trying to make them 'well rounded citizens' (define it, and then maybe you can test it)? Is it just tax-payer babysitting (school violence would be the only relevant metric than perhaps)?
You could just evaluate the teacher themselves, and as long as they seem to be competent and honest, you could just rely on their evaluations. A kind of 'web of trust' model for testing.
I agree there needs to be some metric, but the standardized testing creates more problems because like I said that goal begins to change the curriculum and become the all encompassing goal.
I'm not sure about the solution to the specific problem you've raised but I'm sure there are better informed people who can solve this. There has to be some solution where kids progress can effectively measure, but also doesn't have the tendency to completely overshadow the curriculum.
If you throw out the tests, how do you know if students were successful or not, or whether they improved?