Federal and territory Labor representatives pushed for the Commonwealth government to fully fund the final two years of the Gonski funding model at a Canberra school this week.
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Federal opposition education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek said the ACT could lose $25 million in education funding if the government did not honour its agreement with territory counterparts.
The federal government will meet with state and territory counterparts to discuss changes to the school funding model at a COAG meeting in April.
The ACT signed up to the six-year agreement with the then Labor federal government in 2013 alongside NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.
Since then, the Coalition backed away from fully funding the fifth and sixth years of the model, which contained the greatest increase in spending.
In addition to the COAG meeting, the government will need to secure support of the crossbench to amend the Education Act in parliament.
During a visit to Belconnen High School, one of several school tours she made across the country during the week, Ms Plibersek said failing to honour the agreement would hurt families and students.
"We've got parents every weekend out there doing cake stalls and sausage sizzles across the country because they know extra resources make a difference to children' education," she said.
"Parents know that without that extra money we'll see fewer teachers, less one on one attention and less support for teaching the basics."
Labor MLA Chris Steel, who attended the school in place of ACT Education Minister Yvette Berry, said federal plans to test year 1 students' literacy and numeracy skills needed to be backed up with sustainable funding.
"It's one thing to test children, it's another thing to put in place the long-term reforms necessary to support those children's learning," Mr Steel said.
"We've seen both in early childhood education, but also in relation to school funding, the government just hasn't put in place the reforms and isn't properly funding its schools."
Mr Birmingham disputed the comments and said the government had continued to increase funding.
"The funding growth for schools under the Turnbull Government means there's no reason schools won't be able to continue to support teachers, including via specialist teachers or targeted intervention programs," Mr Birmingham said.
"It's clear that while a strong level of funding to schools matters, and we have that, what we do with that funding matters even more."
Education was one of the main topics at December's COAG meeting, but no major agreements were met between the governments.
Labor pledged $85 million for public school upgrades and another $15 million for grants to private schools prior to the ACT election in October.
The agreed Gonski funding will stop at the end of this year.
