ACT Education Minister Yvette Berry says she will lobby the federal government to commit to the final two years of the Gonski agreement at a meeting of state, territory and the federal education ministers this week.
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But the education council meeting will not discuss future school funding, despite arrangements for 2018 and beyond not yet being clear.
Instead, federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham has requested an additional gathering of education ministers in June ahead of a new deal being struck at that month's Council of Australian Governments meeting.
Ms Berry and the Association of Independent Schools of the ACT have made a plea for answers sooner to allow schools to plan for next year onwards.
"Simon Birmingham has promised to talk about school funding and reform but again has shared no information and again it seems the media know more than state and territory ministers do," Ms Berry said.
"I'm not holding my breath for any commitment from the Commonwealth and have heard almost nothing from them since we last tried to have this conversation last December."
Mr Birmingham said families, teachers and students were being misled by some state and territory leaders who had called for more federal funding but reduced their own contribution in the past several years.
According to the Productivity Commission, the ACT government cut school funding by 4.8 per cent between 2010 and 2015 while the Commonwealth's contribution rose 17.1 per cent.
"In the policy we took to the last election, outlining how we would continue to grow investment in schools, we made it clear that such trickery from the states would not be allowed under new funding arrangements, which will tie future Commonwealth funding increases to guaranteed funding increases from the states and territories and the implementation of reforms that national and international evidence shows will boost student outcomes," Mr Birmingham said.
Mr Birmingham has also previously indicated any new arrangement will address the indexation rate of currently "over-funded" non-government schools.
In the ACT, this includes Daramalan College (which receives 192.97 per cent of its funding allocation), Radford College (203.04 per cent) and Marist College (177.91 per cent).
The Independent Schools Association of the ACT executive director Andrew Wrigley said there was a high degree of angst among principals and boards, with his sector left in the dark on the new arrangements effective from next year.
"Students attending independent schools receive significantly less funding than government school students, with the majority of funding for independent school students coming from after-tax private contributions by parents and school communities," he said.
"In any proposed [or] suggested change to a funding model, government must consider the impact at the individual school level.
"Fundamentally, the government should increase the overall bucket of funding for schools - but not at the expense of any sector of schooling."
