The Street Stops Here

Anyone who questions the value of a good Catholic school education must read
Patrick J. McCloskey’s “The Street Stops Here”… McCloskey’s heartfelt eyewitness account of his year at Rice High School is accompanied by keen analysis that echoes the conclusions of academic experts.
New York Times

“Powerful, eloquent, candid, McCloskey’s account should be required reading for those who seek to remedy the academic woes of our troubled urban schools.”
Publisher’s Weekly

“[The Street Stops Here]…should be required reading for anyone who is interested in the welfare of our kids.”
The Wall Street Journal

“If President Obama…wants to know “what works for kids,” particularly students on the social margins, he should pick up The Street Stops Here.”
Weekly Standard
“[E]xtraordinary …compelling…. More than in any other book on Catholic education, McCloskey lets us see exactly how dedicated, underpaid educators doing the right thing in the classroom and in an atmosphere of mutual respect and order can transform the lives of at-risk African-American boys.”
City Journal

The real accomplishment of McCloskey’s work, though, is setting forth a primer for urban school districts and raising questions about the sacrifices it takes to turn around struggling institutions… Although not every innovation can be applied at traditional public schools, the book is something educators and education reformers should cling to and study….
San Francisco Chronicle

“When an inner-city public school does what most Catholic schools do every day, it makes the headlines,” says Patrick J. McCloskey, author of a new book called The Street Stops Here, about the year he spent at Rice High — an Irish Christian Brothers school in Harlem. “President Obama has a chance to rise above the ideological divide simply by giving credit where credit is due, by focusing on results, and the reason for those results.”
William McGurn, columnist, The Wall Street Journal

“McCloskey undertook a non-ideological inquiry to see what makes one inner-city, underfunded Catholic school successful… convincing in its portrayal of Rice’s mission to put an education, not a creed, into young men’s heads.”
Kirkus Reviews

“Hollywood should grab this plot and ensure Denzel Washington gets the lead role.”
Ottawa Citizen

“McCloskey rightly wonders why dismal public schools are not more eager to investigate and emulate the secular educational practices of their Catholic peers….”
St. Petersburg Times

“While others have told the story of Catholic education today, none have told the story on the school level better than McCloskey….
Policymakers who are thinking of what the loss of Catholic schools means should read The Street Stops Here. They will see why they must take action. Unfortunately, as with almost all issues in politics today, our leaders see solutions in terms of spending money rather than in terms of empowerment they can encourage and help provide. If President Obama would govern with this understanding about education, there would indeed be change we can believe in. We can only hope.”
National Catholic Reporter
Frank J. Macchiarola, former New York City public schools chancellor, is chancellor of St. Francis College in Brooklyn, N.Y.

“Patrick J. McCloskey’s The Street Stops Here is well worth checking out as it’s a compelling and unsparing story of one Catholic school in New York fighting the odds.”
Eduwonk, November 2008

“Given how many charter school programs resemble inner-city Catholic schools, Patrick McCloskey’s new book The Street Stops Here makes for particularly timely reading.”
This Week in Education,
November 2008

Patrick J. McCloskey’s candid and vividly told book…takes us into the no-frills classrooms of Rice High School and shines a bright light onto the world of an all-boys school and urban parochial education…McCloskey points to the pedagogical method at work at Rice, which the principal pounded into his students and faculty, as the key to the school’s success. Again and again, Gober exhorts his students to take responsibility for their futures, to be disciplined, and to place academic achievement above all else, including even the glory of Rice’s famous basketball team. That may seem old-fashioned compared to the holistic, more creative programs of some charter schools, but virtually all of Rice’s graduates who apply are accepted to colleges, and some even make it into the Ivy League.
Columbia Magazine, Spring 2009

“McCloskey makes a compelling case that Catholic schools and social institutions were the primary reasons for the progress of the Irish, while misguided government policies and pedagogy were the primary reasons for the current plight of inner-city blacks.”
PHX News

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