Urban Education Questions

I have many questions about urban schools but the thing that intrigues me the most is standardized testing. I have a lot of questions about this. First of all, I would like to know just how poorly some of these schools in Newark are performing on these tests. I want to know how much this correlates to how much the students are actually learning. I think that it is crazy that these scores decide how successful a school is but it only tests math and English. I realize that these are two very important subjects but many students are very good at other things. I think we should be focusing on each individual student and finding their strengths. In order to do this standardized testing would have to be altered. I want to look into ways to alter our curriculums and testing. I want to take a look at data from past years about standardized testing and try to find solutions that may better represent each individual student and at the same time determine whether a school is heading in the right direction. So my question is this: What are alternatives to current standardized tests?