Public education lobby group Save Our Schools has called on the federal and ACT governments to wind back funding to Canberra's non-government sector as new analysis shows all but three independent schools are funded well above their entitlement.
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A report by Save Our Schools convenor Trevor Cobbold has placed total government over-funding of independent schools at 31.3 per cent and Catholic schools at 38.3 per cent for 2018.
Mr Cobbold's calculations found a last-minute adjustment assistance fund - aimed at helping non-government schools transition to lower annual funding under the federal government's new model - would extend the over-funding of Catholic schools by 10 years, increase cash given to some already over-funded independent schools and reduce the extent of planned cuts to others currently receiving more than their projected need.
Nine independent schools receiving extra money under the so-called Gonski 2.0 model will also receive transition funds, a quirk of the deal derided by Mr Cobbold as "an astonishing waste of taxpayer funds".
"It highlights the new special deal as a political fix without any logical rationale," he said.
Only Blue Gum Community School, Canberra Montessori School and Trinity Christian School were found to be under-funded among Canberra's 18 independent schools. Others received more than their entitlement - sometimes significantly.
Including funding from the federal and territory governments, Mr Cobbold's calculations found Daramalan College and Radford College each received 195 per cent of the school resourcing standard, Burgmann College 184 per cent and Marist 173 per cent.
"While the Commonwealth government is the major source of over-funding of ACT private schools, the ACT government also provides significant over-funding to both Catholic and independent schools," Mr Cobbold said.
"There is no case for this. The ACT government should progressively reduce its over-funding of private schools to 20 per cent of their school resourcing standard over the next five years."
An Education Directorate spokesman said the ACT government had decided to maintain 2018 funding to non-government schools in line with their 2017 funds as it waited for detail on the Commonwealth's new model. He acknowledged that all non-government schools were funded above the school resourcing standard.
"Funding to non-government schools from 2019 and beyond is expected to be finalised during 2018 subject to finalisation of the new Commonwealth funding arrangements," he said.
"The ACT government is committed to a needs based funding model and approach for funding non-government schools in the ACT, including transition arrangements."
The Association of Independent Schools of the ACT executive director Andrew Wrigley noted that no Canberra schools had publicly questioned the integrity of the federal government's new funding model and were instead preparing to receive less recurrent funding over the decade.
"Schools who are currently above the Commonwealth [school resourcing standard] are there because of decisions made by multitudes of governments over the past three decades," he said.
"The suggestion they're all rich kids flies in the face of recent data that shows the percentage of high-income families in Canberra send their kids to government schools. So as soon as we can stop this ridiculous supposed rich families, poor families going to prescribed schools, the better."
The federal government's new funding model is aimed at ensuring all non-government schools across Australia transition to receiving 80 per cent of the school resourcing standard from the Commonwealth within the next decade.
A federal Education Department spokesman has previously said the adjustment assistance funding was "allocated in consultation with the ACT Association of Independent Schools between all ACT independent schools, following consideration of each school's funding under previous arrangements and each school's transition pathway under the new arrangements".
