John Coons thinks his fellow advocates of school choice are overemphasizing its effects on test scores. He cites a study of school choice from Barbados:
The result: Children transferring to private schools had no higher scores over time, but their rates of graduation, college enrollment and completion, plus other “real life” outcomes were markedly higher. The conclusion: Parents prefer schools that teach values, morality and character, wanting their children to “be not only good students but good people.” The later life records of these same children are reported as remarkably richer than those left behind, in both economic and human terms – and in sheer happiness.