Black market schools

[Misfire]

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Whether SATs are or aren't objective, and how close they are to being objective, designing objective tests obviously can be done. Until then SATs and other standardized tests are a reasonable proxy.

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No, they absolutely aren't. If you only knew what a sham of at test the SAT really is. Seriously. It's so bad, the College Board's lawyers advised they remove the word "Aptitude" from the official name of the test to avoid being sued. (I've heard they did get sued over the name, but I can't find verification that's true). Anyhoo, it's now just called "The SAT," which stands for "The SAT," and what used to be the "right" answer is now known by the more subjective (and less lawsuit-vulnerable) term "credited response". In reality, the SAT only tests your ability to take the SAT.

Truly objective tests are virtually impossible to create, let alone create for use across a very large population of students. The development of tests like this require literally thousands of questions to be created and extensively tested across demographics to accurately weigh their difficulty among students. This is a tall order in and of itself, but don't forget the even larger challenge of ensuring that each of those thousands and thousands of questions actually tests aptitude in its intended subjects. You'll be hard-pressed to find even one test that accomplishes this goal.

Solution? Don't standardize. The quality of education should be judged by the customers--students and their parents. Under a private system, the consumer has a choice among competing systems to weigh their own needs and values against a variety of choices available.