Testing for Intellgence?

Since coming to this country I hear so much about standardized testing and having to pass them or students will not be able to graduate from high school.   I believe in accountability but not to the extent in having to give a test.  There are so many other ways in which students can be held accountable and one way is giving them the opportunity to show themselves in the real world.  Students leave high school without knowing anything about life and what the real world is like. 

                For example, in my country Colombia students at the age of 15 years take an assessment called (PISA) it assesses the extent to which 15-year-olds students near the end of compulsory education have acquired key knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in modern societies.

                 The assessment does not just ascertain whether students can reproduce knowledge; it also examines how well students can extrapolate from what they have learned and apply that knowledge in unfamiliar settings, both in and outside of school. This approach reflects the fact that modern economies reward individuals not for what they know, but for what they can do with what they know. PISA offers insights for education policy and practice and helps monitor trends in students’ acquisition of knowledge and skills across countries and in different demographic subgroups within each country. The findings allow policy makers around the world to gauge the knowledge and skills of students in their own countries in comparison with those in other countries, set policy targets against measurable goals achieved by other education systems, and learn from policies and practices applied elsewhere.

https://www.oecd.org/pisa/PISA-2015-Colombia.pdf