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THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 
The cast and crew of The Paideia Players made for an enjoyable evening of hardy laughter with their lively rendition of The Merchant of Venice this spring. While students and families obviously delighted in the performance, even the community at large was impressed. The school office received the following card addressed to The Paideia Players: “What a pleasure seeing your flawless production of The Merchant of Venice. Your countless hours of preparation are appreciated. BRAVO! Your mailman, John.” While there was much mirth and laughter on-stage, some of the most humorous moments took place back-stage, including: 
Our brave lads and ladies made the best of all of these minor setbacks, and as the Bard himself would say, “All’s Well That Ends Well.” 
A city’s best and greatest welfare, safety, and strength consist rather in its having many able, learned, wise, honorable, and well-educated citizens.
- Martin Luther
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Perseverance Pays
Paideia Students and PSAT Scores
 If you have ever wondered how students who have been in a Classical Christian school (specifically Paideia) for many years compare to students are other high schools on standardized tests, keep reading. The good news is…there is only good news to report. Each year, in October, we offer and recommend that students in 9th – 11th grade write the PSAT (Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test). There are several reasons for this recommendation. First, the PSAT provides information regarding a high school student’s academic strengths and weaknesses. Second, familiarity with college admissions testing typically translates to an increase in standardized testing scores; testing categories, questions, and evaluations are similar between the PSAT and the SAT Reasoning Test (Scholastic Aptitude Test). Third, National Merit Scholarships awards are determined by a student’s junior year PSAT scores. This year’s PSAT results arrived in December, and I met with parents and students to discuss PSAT results. We reviewed the scores, academics strengths and weaknesses identified by the PSAT, recommendations for improvement, and score comparisons to students from around the nation. We used this meeting to discuss a variety of other college planning issues: community service hours, college contacts, CLEP testing, summer dual enrollment at local colleges, and ways students can develop and demonstrate “Intellectual Curiosity.” This year we had the largest group ever of Paideia 9th - 11th grade students to participate in the PSAT. Careful review of the test results provided some interesting information, especially concerning students who have attended a Classical Christian school for five or more years. The chart on page 2 provides the PSAT percentile score rankings for this group of freshman and sophomore Paideia students. (A percentile ranking score indicates a student has scored as well as or better than the percentage of students indicated in the ranking.) The sophomores at Paideia with 5+ years in CCE (Classical Christian Education) scored in the 96th percentile; these students scored better than 96% of the high school juniors nationwide that participated in the PSAT in 2009. Click here to read this article in its entirety.
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