Y

ou can't even put your ear to the ground to hear what's coming.

That whirring sound overhead drowns out all else.

Fwap-fwap-fwap-fwap-fwap.

You can't even see what's coming, either. You can't see anything at all for all those helicopters up there blocking out the sun.

Black helicopters that is. Agents of conspiracy are up there patrolling the Alabama skies, ready to douse the whole state with socialist propaganda, new-age ideals, and maybe even some of those homosexual tendencies.

Fwap-fwap-fwap-fwap-fwap.

Be vigilant. Be ever vigilant.

Right.

It is so easy to get caught up in the drama, because drama is so ... dramatic. The most zealous of those opposing educational standards like those in Common Core complain that even the classic "To Kill a Mockingbird" is profane and filled with dangerous messages, that -- essentially -- the classroom is no place to expand a student's mind.

Grandmas put pressure on state Legislators – heck, they pin them against the Statehouse wall – and the next thing you know lawmakers are back-peddling like Sen. Bill Holtzclaw. Instead of raising up the children of Alabama, they end up talking about ... absurdities.

Like book banning. Holtzclaw, and state school board member Betty Peters, have already said they want to remove one book – Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" – from reading lists.

It's nuts. Not just because it's dumb to expect students to know more when they are exposed to less, but because Alabama doesn't even have a reading list. The State Department of Education does point to Common Core documents as examples of the type of books students should be able to comprehend. But choices about who actually assigns the books are made by local school districts.

Right here in Alabama.

But that's not what gets the noise. The group Alabamians United for Excellence in Education – a force in the fight against Common Core – finds all sorts of threats in those standards. Not just with reading recommendations, but with textbooks and other ... threats.

"What used to be science fiction, socialist propaganda and new age-like writing is children and student literature," the group argues on its "Stop Common Core" website. AUEE objects to several textbooks "linked" to Common Core, including the history book "Before Columbus: The Americas of 1492 (Grades 9-10)."

What's wrong with that book? Well for one, it "vilifies the timber industry."

Of 1492?

It's all a bunch of ... Bigfoot. It's alien abductions and ... fwap.

Because there are two versions of Common Core in this so-called debate, and that one comes with a black helicopter whir. It is based in fear, and fantasy and the belief that insulation is the best education.

And then there is the reality of Common Core.

It is a set of standards and expectations that Alabama students need to meet in order to compete in the world. Nothing more. They are national standards -- not federal mandates – and are designed to make sure every student finishes school with a certain core of knowledge that will follow them to college and life.

And that should drive the conversation. Especially in a state where – according to the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama -- less than a third of students score well enough on ACT tests to prepare for college-level algebra or biology, and that is far below the national average. Only one in five Alabama students enters college fully prepared in all their subjects.

That should drive the debate in Alabama. Not conspiracy theories.

The issue ought to be simple: How do we support our public schools enough to raise the level of instruction so our students can compete with anybody in the whole wide world? In English, and reading, and science, and particularly in math.

That's what Alabama needs to talk about. Instead we get sidetracked by wingnuts.

And all we hear is ...

fwap-fwap-fwap

John Archibald's column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays in the Birmingham News, and on AL.com. Email him at jarchibald@al.com