No wonder schools of education are so screwed up

Rarely does anything surprise me in the newspaper these days. I do have to say that this article expounding on the benefits of the “Cuban model” was pretty surprising. What made it even more shocking was the fact that the author is a professor in the College of Education at Eastern New Mexico University (based in Portales). If communists like this guy are hanging out in Portales, I can only imagine what the education departments in Santa Fe and Taos must be like.

But enough about the author, what about the actual argument that Americans should look to Cuba as a model? First and foremost, it is hard to understand why so many Cubans have escaped their “socialist paradise” and “people first politics and economics” over the years in favor of coming to the United States and other freer nations.

While I know that the author would say that gross domestic product is not a useful measuring stick, it is also useful to note that Cuba’s is ranked 109th in the world. That is not exactly a stellar performance and it is maintained in part by reliance on Venezuelan oil.

I do agree with the author on one thing: the US should end the embargo. But I believe that a flood of US tourists and dollars would be the death knell for the Cuban state as it exists. After all, the embargo is the catch-all excuse that Fidel Castro and his brother have used as an excuse for their nation’s poverty. Taking it away would clearly show that the emperor has no clothes. Besides, free Americans should be able to travel wherever they are welcomed.