Gov. John Kasich needs a lesson in Common Core. Even he admits it.

Speaking at an ideas summit sponsored by National Review magazine this month, Mr. Kasich said: “I’ve talked to governors who were involved in this, who now have run away from it. I said, if there’s something here I don’t understand, if there’s some nefarious scheme, tell me what it is, because I don’t want Washington trying to tell my local schools — I don’t even want to tell my local schools what to do.

“But I am pleased in Ohio that we have high standards,” he added, “and that we’re in a position where local school boards developed a curriculum to meet the high standards.”

Governor Kasich, who has hinted at a presidential run, has been nothing but glib while discussing Common Core. He says he thinks sentiment against the national education standards has more to do with politics than substance. He repeatedly insists that the standards are voluntary, and that he just doesn’t get all the fuss. It seems there is a lot he doesn’t understand about Common Core.

Common Core exemplifies the way the federal government imposes its will on the states: The promise of taxpayer dollars is tied to Draconian regulations and gigantic initiatives that states must help pay for. This carrot-and-stick approach to education policy is unfair to taxpayers, increases federal influence over education, and does not improve student outcomes.

Mr. Kasich insists implementation of Common Core was and is voluntary. If that’s true, why are states looking for a way out? If Common Core is strictly a voluntary initiative, with no coercion, bribery, or bullying by the federal government, states that want to repeal and replace the standards would not still be tangled up in them.

There is, in fact, plenty of coercion. Billions of dollars of federal Race to the Top money were tied to carrying out the standards. States fear having their waivers from federal regulations linked to the No Child Left Behind law yanked if they abandon the standards. The federal government threatens to withhold funding if too many students opt out of tests aligned with Common Core.

All of these factors make Common Core nearly impossible to get rid of. The standards come back rebranded. Legislation to repeal and replace Common Core withers at the hands of a few companies and other third parties, instead of voters.

Opponents of Common Core have to sort out how to get rid of the tests, textbooks, and educational resources tied to it. They have to figure out how to replace the standards, which fundamentally determine curricula. Even then, students still may be required to take Common Core-aligned exams to get into college.

At the ideas summit, Mr. Kasich claimed that governors themselves wrote the standards and that Common Core was then executed badly. That is simply not true.

Governors did not write the standards. Some governors asked the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers to draft standards. The actual writing, however, took place behind closed doors. There is no evidence to suggest that governors were involved in that process.

Thousands of parents, teachers, and activists across the country have raised reasonable questions about the quality of Common Core standards, their age-appropriateness, student privacy issues, the co-opting of standardized tests, and the fact that national standards would bring the federal government closer to the classroom than ever before.

Governor Kasich is ignoring the most important voices in this conversation: his current constituents, and the people he would be expected to serve if he became president. Dismissing the reservations of a large number of citizens should be a major cause for concern about a governor, much less a prospective presidential candidate.

Mr. Kasich’s support for Common Core belies his attempt to brand himself as direct, honest, and a different kind of politician. Shrugging his shoulders and saying he doesn’t understand people’s objections to a major education policy problem is more of the same big-government arrogance to which we’ve become all too accustomed in recent years.

Heather Kays is a research fellow at the Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank in Chicago, and is managing editor of School Reform News.

First Published May 31, 2015, 4:00 a.m.